Updated 5.36pm 

Film commissioner Johann Grech's IMDB page was temporarily wiped of its film and TV credits following criticism from industry insiders. In their place, five articles were added to Grech’s ‘Publicity’ section, the latest of which is Times of Malta’s story on the commissioner's “completely unethical” credits.

On Sunday, Times of Malta reported pushback from the film and TV industry on Grech’s 64-long list of credits on projects made during his time as the country’s film commissioner.

Grech had been linked to 64 productions on his IMDB page – an online database for the audio-visual industry – sparking accusations of unethical behaviour.

These disappeared on Tuesday, only to be reinstated again hours later.

Replying to questions sent by Times of Malta, Grech said that he did not remove anything from his own page.

IMDB functions on a user-based system that allows people to make community changes on any page but, unlike other crowd-sourced sites such as Wikipedia, records of changes are only available to IMDB and its staff.

“You'll appreciate that my focus and time are not on this issue but on how to bring more investment to last year's record year and how to create more opportunities for the hundreds of people who have heeded our call to join the film industry,” the commissioner said.

Grech has yet to respond to questions sent by Times of Malta regarding the origins of the credits.

Film commissioner Johann Grech's now creditless IMDB page.

Except for one, each of the credits listed Grech as ‘Production Support: Malta Film Commissioner’ for films and TV series like Jurassic World: Dominion, Luzzu and Foundation. Of Grech’s 63 commissioner credits, 24 were listed under ‘Thanks’ while the remaining 39 listed him as an additional crew member.

Sources within the film industry said it was inappropriate for Grech to link his name and take credit for certain films when his role in productions was minimal. “This gives the false sense that he has worked on many films when, in reality, he hasn’t worked a single day on a film set,” said one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In place of the extensive list of accreditations, Grech has five articles within the ‘Publicity’ section of his IMDB profile, all of which follow themes of controversy revolving around Grech’s role as film commissioner.

PN sees breach of ethics

On Monday, PN spokesperson on culture Julie Zahra urged Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo, as the minister responsible for the film industry, to investigate Grech’s actions.

She said the PN has in the past had spoken about Grech's abusive management, and this was the latest case where the government appointee was using his position for personal interests, in breach of ethics.

Zahra said that among other things, it would be better for Grech to heed the needs of local film industry stakeholders, who were ending up seeking work abroad.