MICHAEL Moore returned to Cannes at the weekend and that can only mean one thing – controversy!

The outspoken filmmaker and fervent President Bush hater was at the 60th festival to unveil his new documentary, Sicko, which examines the US health system and points a number of accusing fingers – much like its predecessor Fahrenheit 911.

The film is already controversial because Moore is currently being investigated by the US Treasury over allegations that he may have broken the trade embargo against Cuba by filming there.

But the director was typically bullish when discussing the film and its surrounding issues at a press conference. He described Sicko as “a call to action” over the provision of healthcare in the US and maintained that the investigation had him suitably concerned.

The documentary takes a hard look at some major American pharmaceutical companies and at alleged corruption in the Food and Drug Administration. It includes a sequence in which Moore takes rescue workers from the September 11 attacks in New York to a location near the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay and a Cuban hospital.

The group in question are suffering from conditions thought to be linked to their work clearing up debris from the site of the World Trade Center, which continues to be a major bone of contention among rescue workers.

But it has landed Moore in trouble with the authorities who could impose fines or even a prison sentence if they can prove he broke the law. And while some at Cannes suggested the investigation helped Sicko‘s cause in terms of the promotion, Moore was at pains to point out that it was never part of his plan.

“The point was not to go to Cuba, it was to go to American soil, to Guantanamo Bay, to take the 9/11 rescue workers there to receive the same healthcare that they are giving the al-Qaeda detainees,” he told reporters. “No filmmaker should ever have to be talking about jail or fines or where he or she can travel.”

He added: “I know a lot of you have written: ‘How dumb are they to give us all this publicity?’ But I’m the one who is personally being investigated, and I’m the one who is personally liable for potential fines or jail so I don’t take it lightly.”

Indeed, Moore is so concerned about the implications of the investigation that he was compelled to send a copy of Sicko out of the US less than 24 hours after he was told about it by his lawyers for fear of the original being conviscated. The copy in question is currently in an unnamed country.

According to the US Treasury, it has no record of a licence being issued authorising Moore to travel to Cuba and in a letter dated May 2, 2007, the department of Foreign Assets Control has given the director 20 working days to provide further details of his visit, including who accompanied him and why.

Moore is currently in the process of clearing his name but maintains the film is an important tool in getting people to wake up over the current state of US healthcare. He has included footage of best practices from other countries that he feels should be embraced by the US system.

And he added: “We’re never going to have real change in the US if the public doesn’t see that it will only happen when they rise up out of their theatre seats and do something about it. What we should do is what we always do as Americans – just take all the things that each of you are doing right and put it into one system, and call it the American system.”

Sicko was shown out of competition at Cannes and will be released in UK cinemas later this year (probably).

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