Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore hasn’t had a new film in almost 6 years, with the release of his last documentary Capitalism: A Love Story way back in 2009. Now the controversial director is returning to the familiar territory of the U.S. government and its war machine with Where to Invade Next, his secret movie project scheduled to debut at the Toronto International Film Festival this September.
The TIFF listed Where to Invade Next on its website Tuesday, calling it what may be Moore’s “most provocative and hilarious film yet.”
Where to Invade Next (stylized as “W2IN”) is a documentary, just like most of Moore’s recent films. It has no distributor on board, and it’s not clear how many distributors have even seen it, though Moore did allude to the film being “in theaters over the holidays later this year.”
“Moore tells the Pentagon to ‘stand down’ — he will do the invading for America from now on,” the TIFF description says. “Discretely shot in several countries and under the radar of the global media, Moore has made a searing cinematic work that is both up-to-the-minute and timeless.”
Moore’s website had no other details about the new film, and he recently answered an online question about the film by saying only, “It’s my policy not to discuss my projects until I release them publicly. You can probably imagine why I have to do it this way. All I’ll say is, I’m pretty sure you won’t be disappointed.”
“The issue of the United States in infinite war is something that has concerned me for quite some time, and provides the necessary satire for this film,” Moore said during a live-streamed Q&A Tuesday afternoon on Periscope. The filmmaker remained for the most part tight-lipped about the project, which he managed to keep under wraps until the world premiere was announced Tuesday morning by Toronto festival organizers.
“Now the secret is out: I have a new movie. We’re very excited about having the premiere in Toronto,” Moore said. “I’ve been very quiet about the making of this film. You probably haven’t seem much of me. … We’ve been very diligent about keeping this under cover,” he added.
Here’s the 6-min video from the Periscope I just did regarding my new film, WHERE TO INVADE NEXT. #W2IN #TIFF15 https://t.co/lKhLhTPUpn
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) July 28, 2015
Moore said no one U.S. military adventure inspired Where to Invade Next. “I don’t think there’s any one trigger. We’ve all been living in this time, certainly post-9/11, and everything that’s going on in this country, in this constant need to always have an enemy — where’s our next enemy? — so we can keep this whole military industrial complex alive, and keep the companies that make a lot of money in business,” he explained.
Michael Moore is the winner of the 2003 Academy Award for Best Documentary for “Bowling for Columbine,” a movie that reverberates now as every week we hear about another mass shooting somewhere. His other hit documentaries with lasting impact include “Fahrenheit 911,” the highest grossing documentary of all time, “Sicko” and “Roger and Me.”