A CONTROVERSIAL men’s rights film that was banned in Melbourne after protests from angry feminists will show at a small screening in Adelaide early next month.

The Red Pill, by US documentary maker Cassie Jaye, began looking at rape culture that normalises sexual assault, but changed direction when Jaye became interested in men’s activist groups who argue men are the ones who are disadvantaged.

media_camera The Red Pill documentary maker Cassie Jaye.

While in the US the film was shunned by some media, in Australia a scheduled screening by Palace Cinemas in Melbourne in October was cancelled after it received a 2000-signature online petition.

The film has been denounced as misogynist and criticised for giving a platform to extremists such as Daryush Valizadeh, a neo-masculinist writer whose biographical postings include “When No Means Yes”. Its banning then became a free-speech issue taken up by commentators such as Andrew Bolt.

Columnist Bettina Arndt strongly supports the film’s message that male victims of domestic violence are unsupported and usually disbelieved.

“Yes, it is vitally important that female victims of domestic violence are given proper protection,” she wrote in a column. “But in offering women protection our lawmakers are setting up a situation where men across the country stand to lose everything when women choose to abuse their power. And believe me, they are doing it.”

media_camera The Red Pill, a doco about men’s rights, is coming to Adelaide.

Since the Melbourne ban, screenings have been organised through social media and it will screen at Wallis Cinemas here on May 1 and at the University of Sydney on May 5.

Adelaide social worker Matilda Baldwin will host the Adelaide event and says men need to speak out because they are discriminated against, particularly in custody arrangements which favour children staying with their mother.

“I’ve worked with a lot of families going through separation and divorce, custody and access battles,” she said. “It is a huge problem.”

She said social workers, psychologists and the courts were indoctrinated in the feminist school of thought and there was no other perspective.

“I think a lot of people need to know what the experience on the other side of the fence looks like,” she said.

She said people could try to shut down the screening, but it would have little effect.

“If people want to be militant, they can give it their best shot but at the end of the day shutting down free speech and debate isn’t going to help their cause one little bit.”

The film is named after the red pill in The Matrix and is intended as a metaphor for choosing a difficult truth.

However critics argue it is really a guise for men deciding what women want.