Michael Moore back at TIFF!

1 Comments POSTED: August 23, 2006 12:26 | By: Thom Powers
mooreblog2.jpgToday the press was buzzing with reports that Michael Moore (left) will be coming to TIFF for a special event in our Mavericks section. Moore will be showing glimpses from not just one, but two works-in-progress. He'll be showing a teaser from his eagerly awaited doc Sicko about the US health care system, due as a major release from The Weinstein Company in 2007.

But kept more secret until yesterday's announcement, Moore has been editing another piece titled The Great 04 Slacker Uprising. It's a scrappy road trip movie following his two months of daily campaigning against George W. Bush in the 2004 election. TIFF audiences will get to see segments from this work-in-progress.

Although the media tracks Moore's every move, he has consciously refrained from making any major appearances or statements since the 2004 election. He's chosen TIFF as the place to open the next chapter to his career. It's a fitting location since Moore's film career kicked off when Roger & Me won the audience award at TIFF in 1989.

John Pierson recalled that festival in his classic insider's book Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes...

JOHN PIERSON:
Finally I joined the troops from Flint, numbering over twenty, in Canada. They had buttons, T-shirts, caps - but their Helmac lint rollers had been seized by Canadian customs at the border. The first public showing in Toronto was scheduled for Saturday night, September 9, at 9:00 pm in the Cumberland 3 - a 300-seat theater. Roger & Me was shot in 16mm, and snuck into this festival under the wire through the good graces of print trafficker Noah Cowan. [He is now TIFF's co-director]... The first of Ebert's several great reviews was out that day. By 8:00 pm Saturday, it appeared that the entire population of Ontario was heading east on Bloor Street in the general direction of the Cumberland in numbers that could have  filled it many times over....

The Monday show went through the roof. Actually the floor nearly collapsed as a result of overcrowding since every square inch of the aisles was filled with bodies. I felt goose bumps, but I didn't forget that Toronto is the festival were even Henry Jaglom is a god. By now I knew where all the big laughs drowned out the dialogue. The ovation was deafening and, as usual, Michael was wickedly funny in the post-screening Q&A session. He acknowledged breaking a cardinal rule by making a documentary that was actually entertaining.

(photo by Thom Powers)

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