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The 22 May 2004, the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore outperformed others movies to win the coveted Palme d’Or, the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival.
It became the first documentary to win at Cannes since “The Silent World”, co-directed by Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle, won the Palme d’Or in 1956.
Director Quentin Tarantino, president of the Cannes jury, announced the winner in front of an appreciative crowd at the Grand Theater Lumiere. The week before, the audience in that same room gave the film a standing ovation after its screening.
It was a surprise victory, especially since the Cannes festival had historically avoided documentaries. “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “The Silent World” were two of the three only non-fiction films allowed to compete in more than five decades.
Moore’s film was a fierce criticism of the foreign policy decisions made by the presidential administration of George W. Bush, mainly its response to the terrorist attacks of the 11 September 2001 and his decision to invade Iraq in 2004.
Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were the targets of Moore’s harshest criticism.
Miramax Films, the production company that financed Fahrenheit 9/11, was originally set to distribute the film, until its parent company, Walt Disney, prevented it from doing so. According to reports, the resulting controversy led to the split of 2005 between the founders of Disney and Miramax, Harvey and Bob Weinstein.
When it was finally distributed by Lion’s Gate, Fahrenheit 9/11 raised about 119 million dollars at the US box office.
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