Moore shows off his trophy
2004-05-24 08:10
France - US filmmaker Michael Moore walked triumphantly up the red carpet at the Cannes film festival late on Sunday for a repeat screening of his documentary criticising President George W Bush, Fahrenheit 9/11, one day after it won the event's coveted Palme d'Or.
Accompanied by his wife and daughter, he spent several minutes posing for photos while brandishing his trophy.
The nine-person Cannes jury, this year led by Kill Bill director Quentin Tarantino, warmly greeted Moore before he headed into the 2 320-seat theatre, where the crowd applauded as he put on his trademark baseball cap.
Applause broke out several times during the film, whose black-tie showing marked the close of the festival.
At the end, Moore grinned through a standing ovation that lasted a dozen minutes to tell the audience: "Thank you very much for your support - and goodbye Mr Bush."
The director has expressed his hopes that the documentary will sway US voters to oust Bush in November presidential elections.
Fahrenheit 9/11 beat 18 other films vying for the Palme d'Or, and Tarantino said it was chosen on artistic grounds, not on its overt left-wing politics.
The documentary savages Bush, portraying him as a dumb president hopelessly out of his depth and only keen to further his family ties to Saudi oil money - including the relatives of Osama bin Laden.
The film takes the position that Bush and his officials deliberately misled the United States to start the Iraq war for their own ends.
"These people have been out of control from the get-go and we as Americans have been responsible for letting that happen," Moore said on Saturday after receiving the Palme d'Or.
The director, who won an Oscar last year for the documentary Bowling for Columbine, dedicated the Cannes trophy to his 22-year-old daughter and "to all the children in America, and in Iraq and around the world who have suffered from our actions".
He has accused the White House of exerting pressure to stop the film from being seen in the United States before the presidential elections. Distribution deals have been arranged for most other countries in the world.
The Cannes jury - which this year counted a total of four US citizens, one French actress, a British actress, a Hong Kong director, a Belgian actor/director and a Finnish critic - insisted on Sunday that Fahrenheit 9/11 won on cinematic merit.
"We all agreed that Fahrenheit 9/11 was the best movie of the competition" totally independent of "all the politics crap", Tarantino told an unprecedented media conference organised by the festival to lift the lid on the jury's reasoning.