Police brutality activists back Tarantino at Hateful Eight premiere

Campaigners against alleged police brutality turned up to support Quentin Tarantino at the New York premiere of the Oscar-winning film-maker’s new western The Hateful Eight.

The Pulp Fiction director has been under fire from local media, including the New York Post, ever since he spoke out at a rally in the city in October. The five largest American police unions have called for a boycott of Tarantino’s films, with the Fraternal Order of Police – described as the world’s “largest organisation of sworn law-enforcement officers” – writing to the Weinstein Company’s Harvey Weinstein to declare that the group’s 325,000 members would not be going to see The Hateful Eight.

However, none were present in Manhattan at the Ziegfeld theater on 54th Street. Instead, a small number of campaigners for the Rise Up October movement, at whose rally Tarantino spoke, turned up in support. One carried a sign referring to the film-maker’s controversial speech: “I have to call the murdered the murdered and I have to call the murderers the murderers.”

It was the “murderers” line that inflamed police unions and their supporters. But Tarantino has shown no sign of backing down over the row, and there appears to be little evidence of a boycott movement against him ahead of the film’s US release on Christmas Day. There were no protestors at The Hateful Eight’s world premiere in Los Angeles last week.

“We stand behind him and we’re glad that he’s standing behind us because murder is murder, no matter who does it,” a campaigner who goes by the name Sister Shirley told The Hollywood Reporter. “Unfortunately, there are too many police officers, law-enforcement officers, all around the United States who are killing, they’re murdering people, and they’re getting away with it. We’re saying enough is enough and we’re not going away.”

Sister Shirley said Tarantino had shown his appreciation for the campaigners’ support, walking over and signing one of their placards. “He is very receptive to what we’re doing. This is not only about him, this is about all of us,” she said. “And I’m glad that he took a stand because a lot of people, they want to take that stand but they don’t have the guts. They don’t want to come out of their comfort zone. They don’t want to stand out.”

The Hateful Eight stars Bruce Dern, Samuel L Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth and Kurt Russell in the story of eight 19th-century travellers trapped in a stagecoach stopover after a blizzard hits Wyoming. It will debut in selected US cinemas on Christmas Day before a wider release on 18 January. The film reaches UK cinemas on 8 January.