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The worst fear of most directors at the Cannes Film Festival is that their movie will be greeted with boos or poor reviews.
For American film-maker Michael Moore, on the other hand, it’s that his latest offering, Sicko, could land him in jail.
Returning with his new film to the place where he won the top prize in 2004 for Fahrenheit 9/11, the 53-year-old director told reporters on Saturday that he was bewildered at Washington’s decision to investigate him for allegedly violating a United States prohibition on visits to Cuba.
“They’ve known about our desire or attempt to go since last October, so why do this now?” Moore said of US Treasury Department investigators. “The fact that they took this action 10 days before the festival, I know a lot of you have written: ‘Well, how dumb are they to give us all this publicity?’ but I’m the one who is being investigated and who’s liable for any fines or jail, so I don’t take it so lightly.”
In the film, which had its world premiere in Cannes on the same day, Moore and several 911 rescue workers — unable to afford treatment for lung problems and other ailments arising from their time at Ground Zero — try to travel by boat to the US base at Guantanamo Bay.
Unable to enter the facility, they end up in Havana where they learn that one of the world’s poorest nations provides for the health of its citizens more effectively than the US does for Americans.
“The point was not to go to Cuba but to go to American soil, to Guantanamo Bay, and to take the 911 rescue workers to receive the same healthcare they are giving the Al Qaeda detainees,” he said, referring to US government “boasts” that accused terrorists receive first-class medical care.
“Heading to Cuba was just an accident because Gauntanamo Bay is located there. If the detainee camp had been on the US naval bases in the Philippines or Australia or Italy, we would’ve gone there.”
Mixing Moore’s trademark sardonic humour with tragic personal stories, Sicko explores why Washington seems more interested in turning profits and backing big business than it is in caring for its citizens.
Among the Americans who appear in the film is a man who accidentally severed the tips of two fingers. When he arrived at the hospital and was told of the US$72,000 ($109,886) cost of having both reattached, he decided he could only afford to fix one.
The other fingertip ended up on the rubbish heap.
“I’m trying to explore bigger ideas and bigger issues, and in this case the bigger issue in this film is who are we as a people?” Moore said. “Why do we behave the way we behave? What has become of us? Where is our soul?”
On the advice of lawyers, the filmmakers had spirited a master copy of Sicko outside the US in case the government tries to seize it.
Asked whether the inquiry could prevent the film opening in the US as planned on June 29, he said: “We haven’t even discussed that possibility.”
He said Sicko was actually meant to be a quieter and more reflective movie than the rabble-rousing Bowling For Columbine or Fahrenheit 9/11.
With Sicko screening out of competition, Moore joked that he didn’t want to appear like a “typical American” by greedily seeking another trophy. - TODAY/fa
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