Press Conference: “Sicko” by Michael Moore

American documentary director Michael Moore, who won the Golden Palm in 2004 for Fahrenheit 9/11, was alone today to meet the press. His latest film being screened Out of
Competition, Sicko, examines the United States health care system. Two quick questions from the moderator established the fact that the film has not yet screened in the Unites
States and that yes, Michael Moore is under federal investigation.

Regarding whether this federal investigation could stop the June opening of the film: “We haven’t even discussed that possibility, that actions would be taken to prevent us from
opening the film on June 29th when it is scheduled to be released in the United States. I don’t know. Our intent was to come here to Cannes quietly. I gave no interviews; no one was to see
the film before we came here and this was to be the first time I was going to speak about it at this table…If they thought it would mar the film in some way, that it would turn some
Americans off in some way because we ended up in Cuba…The point was not to go to Cuba, the point was to go to American soil in Guantanamo Bay and to get the same health care as the Al
Queda detainees.”

Michael Moore on health care and the presidential elections: “We need candidates that say that you must remove profit when it comes to health care. Profits should have nothing to do
with making a decision over whether or not they should help someone… And this needs to be non-profit and it needs to be managed by our government for the people, of the people, by the
people.”

Regarding the rosy picture portrayed of Canada’s health care system in the film: “I know it is difficult to hear me say these nice things about Canada, but I think that if we
aspired more to the way you are doing it, we would be better off. I recognize that there are flaws in your system but that is not for me to correct. My thinking in traveling around the world,
seeing your system, the British system, the Cuban system, the French system is that we should do as Americans always do: just steal the best things that you have in your systems that you’re
doing right and don’t do the things you’re doing wrong.”

On why he was not present confronting people in power this time in the film: “The film is a call to action. The film is meant not for Michael Moore to go and do it, but for the American
people to go and do it.”

What triggered him to begin investigating American health care: “I had a television show in the United States in 1999 called “The Awfull Truth” and we did a piece on a man
who had health insurance, but the health insurance company Humana would not pay for a pancreas transplant. We then went and conducted the man’s funeral on the lawn of Humana health care
company. Three days later they decide to give the man his transplant. So wow, we saved the man’s life just with a camera, and we started thinking what else we could do with this issue and
that is where the genesis began.”

Photo Copyright AFP