Moore Film Captures French, Arab Awards By Scott Ott

After the stunning triumph of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 at the Cannes Film Festival in France, the winner of the coveted Palme d’Or headed to the Gulf state of Qatar to accept another best film award from Al Jazeera.

The Arab network’s Palme d’Tree award recognizes Mr. Moore’s anti-Bush documentary as a “stunning journalistic and artistic achievement which is all the more amazing because of the oppressive government under which it was produced.”

“That someone could make a film like this in America, under the iron fist of the Bush-Cheney administration, demonstrates a kind of courage unknown and unnecessary in the free Arab film industry,” according to the official news release from the Al Jazeera Film Festival.

Fahrenheit 9/11 edged out top Arab-produced films including, The Mighty Eternal House of Saud, Zarqawi: Hero of Modern Islam, and Elegy for a Brother: Tribute to Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Moore said he’s delighted to receive recognition from both France and the Arab world in the same week, and that he hoped it would inspire other Americans to “rise up and overthrow the Bush regime and thus win freedom of expression for other documentarists.”

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