- Title: Michael Moore vents at world premiere of Trump documentary
- Date: 7th September 2018
- Summary: TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA (SEPTEMBER 6, 2018) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, MICHAEL MOORE, SAYING: "Well, we explore the question of how the hell we got in this mess and how do we get out of it but the film is also very much about who we are as Americans because he didn't fall out of the sky. He's been around for a long
- Embargoed: 21st September 2018 03:30
- Keywords: Michael Moore documentary Donald Trump film Toronto film festival TIFF world premiere
- Location: TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- City: TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- Country: Canada
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Film
- Reuters ID: LVA0038WMMKP3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Provocative filmmaker Michael Moore turned up to the world premiere of his new documentary "Fahrenheit 11/9" with minutes to spare before the film was going to be screened.
Moore, setting aside his standard jeans and baseball cap for a dressier look, spoke briefly to reporters about his film about Donald Trump, saying "Well we explore the question of how the hell we got in this mess and how do we get out of it but the film is also very much about who we are as Americans because he didn't fall out of the sky. He's been around for a long time and we've behaved in a certain way for long time and when you look back now you can see how the road was paved for him."
The documentary filmmaker sent an e-mail out on Thursday (September 6) calling the film "a story of hope". However, on the red carpet, he opposed that view saying "Hope right now is the death of us. Hope is passive. Hope is wishful. We don't need wishful right now, we need action. We are in a war to get our country back. Anyone who doesn't understand that is going to be sorely disappointed in the results of what's about to happen in the next few years with Donald Trump."
Also, in the e-mail, Moore said he hoped his new documentary would mark "the beginning of the end" for the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump.
"Film is one of our most powerful mediums," he said, adding "It's really the last populist art form that just about everybody can afford to go to. You can't go to a concert anymore unless you've got money, you can't do anything really. You can't go to a National Basketball Association game, anything that costs a lot of money but for the dwindling middle class and for working people, you can still afford to go to the movies so it's kind of our last way to reach out to people."
Before leaving the red carpet to start the screening, Moore gave one last piece of advice. "Everybody watching this in the U.S. lives between a three to five hour drive from a swing district and you should be planning to spend every weekend in October in those districts, flipping the House of Representatives and maybe the senate. If we could do that, it would be a huge blow to Trump and it would buy us some time. But he's not going anywhere. He's not going anywhere and you have to embrace that idea. Even though he may go somewhere and we get rid of him, if the same people that two years ago were going 'Oh Hillary's going to win. There's no way she can lose to that guy.' I think everybody learned their lesson with that, right? We need to take him seriously. He doesn't plan on leaving." - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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