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EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Michael Moore is in awe of the endeavor behind anthology film From Ground Zero. The proeject is acollection of 22 shorts by emerging local filmmakers told through fiction, documentary, docu-fiction, animation and experimental cinema, each capturing the daily challenges, tragedies and moments of resilience faced in the Palestinian enclave.
“This is a stunning achievement,” the Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 director says about the Palestinian film crafted amid the daily destruction and death stalking Gaza.
“It is a brilliant work of art. I tell people, do not avoid this film. If your kids are mature and of a certain age, take them to it. This isn’t just the blood and gore you witness on cable news. This film is the response of people who are trying to stay alive while being bombarded and shot at.”
The Oscar longlisted From Ground Zero, which has played at festivals around the world, has been widely praised by critics for its charm, artistry and emotion, and holds a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
For Moore, speaking to us days before the Gaza ceasefire was agreed, his support for the film is a matter of conscience.
“On many levels, I don’t have a choice. Those bombs and bullets raining down on Gazans have been sent by the richest country on earth with my tax dollars. I’m not going to stop paying taxes and have them haul me away, so I’ve got to do something to try to get this to stop.”
Moore, Hollywood’s arch rabble-rouser, is as willing as ever to stick his neck out for his beliefs. He and the projects he backs are rarely far from someone’s ire.
Just last week, in emails seen by Deadline, the organization Christians United For Israel blitzed Academy voters — including Moore — and cinema chains with emails denigrating From Ground Zero as being part of a “populist propaganda” and called for it to be pulled from Academy consideration and theaters.
The Christian Zionist organization, which has a purported 10 million members, operates under the leadership of American pastor and televangelist John Hagee.
What does Moore make of their campaign against the film?
“I feel sorry for them. They obviously don’t know what’s going on. But I realize there’s a lot of money for over a year that’s been behind the campaign to spread propaganda and to not tell the truth about what’s really happening in Gaza.”
One of the group’s criticisms is that the movie doesn’t give enough time to the role played by Hamas or the October 7 attacks in the destruction that has been rained down on Gazans.
Moore conversely believes that the shadow of “October 7 hangs over the whole film”. He is quick to point out his disgust over the Hamas terror attack, but also points the finger of blame for the ensuing carnage at Benjamin Netanyahu.
He has said as much in TV appearances after the latest violence erupted. Doing so comes with risks. But also support in unexpected places.
“When I first started speaking out against Netanyahu on TV in the months after October 7, my agent called me from Hollywood. He’s Jewish. I was kind of bracing myself. My agent said, ‘Well, half my family was born in Israel, and what you said on TV last night, if Biden listens to you, the war will end and Israel will be saved.”
I ask if that agent would be Ari Emanuel, who still reps Moore. “I might be talking about someone with a name that sounds like that,” he chuckles. Emanuel has been outspoken in his criticism of Netanyahu, including at a fiery Hollywood Gala last year, a speech which made Moore proud.
Moore’s ties to the Middle East region run deeper than most non-Arab and non-Jewish westerners. The filmmaker recounts at length his childhood growing up in Michigan where his dad worked alongside Arab and Palestinian (some of whom he says were Jewish) workers at the local General Motors factory.
He also touches on his proximity in 1985 to a Pro-Palestine terror attack at Vienna airport that left him sobbing on a hotel bed; and finally to his own visits to Gaza.
“You might think what I experienced years before in Vienna would have put me off entirely from venturing to Palestine, but once you see this large open-air prison we call Gaza, you can’t unsee it. It bothered me so deeply. My feeling was that if you have any empathy in you at all, you should ask yourself: how could I live like this?”
I bring our discussion back to From Ground Zero and a question that is looming large over contemporary U.S. distribution. Why are so many distributors shying away from acclaimed films with a political or social message.
Oscar nominee and fellow Palestine-themed doc No Other Land remains without a distributor. Late last year, fellow Oscar winning documentarian Alex Gibney lamented the lack of interest from traditional buyers in his investigative film The Bibi Files about Israeli leader Netanyahu. It took a Palestinian-owned indie Watermelon Pictures to step up to distribute From Ground Zero domestically.
There are certain topics most buyers can’t countenance, it seems. The shun extends beyond films about Palestine, however. Well-received 2024 Sundance film Union, about the high-profile Amazon workers’ unionization battle, was another documentary that couldn’t find a buyer. As has been well-documented, Oscar nominee The Apprentice also struggled to find a major distributor with many scared off by Donald Trump’s sabre rattling. Meanwhile, Deadline has anecdotally heard stories about investors backing out of upcoming social impact films. The shifting political landscape in America is part of the issue. Buyer fears of not having streamer deals re-upped is another, one industry vet posits to me.
I ask Moore if there is a crisis of self-censorship in the U.S. film sector? “Yes”, he replies, before proudly noting that he opened the latest edition of his Traverse City Film Festival with The Apprentice. He also offered his services as an exec producer on No Other Land.
“We need people that have courage, and who are not subject to propaganda or don’t care about it,” he declares.
He continues: “Is there a campaign to stop all this? Of course there is. It’s not like I haven’t had to fight my own battles this past year to get my own work out there… or even just to appear on TV. How many people like me do you see on CNN? Not many.”
70-year-old Moore hasn’t directed a film since 2018 doc Fahrenheit 11/9, which was about the first Trump Presidency and gun violence. Does he have another firework up his sleeve as the second Trump term gets underway?
“I’ve been working on something, yes, for the last number of months, but I can’t talk about that right now,” he says.
Moore is well aware of the dangers his style of documentary-making present. Those risks could be even greater in Trump’s America.
“When you’re me, you have to make sure you’re alive to make the film. I’m not unconscious of what the risks are, but that’s never stopped me and this is my 35th year of making movies. I am working quietly on it with my producers. We don’t want to get shut down so I’m not going to say much more. But as of now, we’re moving forward.”
One of Moore’s most potent filmmaking strengths has been the ability to combine playfulness with earnest seriousness. He offers a final tease with a glint in his voice: “I’ll have some interesting stories to tell when I can speak about it, like what the heck Justin Baldoni, Wayfair and Blake Lively have to do with me trying to make a movie…”
