WHAT'S NEW

Cannes Film Festival Palm D'or winner Michael Moore

::MOVIES::

Controversial anti-Bush administration documentary and winner of this year's Palme d'Or at Cannes, Fahrenheit 9/11, will have its Australian premiere in Melbourne. The film by US documentary maker Michael Moore has been described by critics as a partisan but powerful indictment of US President George Bush's handling of the September 11, 2001 attacks and his war on terror. Its first screening in Australia will take place at the 53rd Melbourne International Film Festival on July 22. MIFF executive director James Hewison said the film would then start screening nationally the week after its premiere. "We are thrilled to be able to add the Australian premiere of this much-anticipated film to the exceptional line-up of new documentaries that will be screened at this year's festival," Mr Hewison said. "It is an incendiary work by one of the world's best known documentary filmmakers and we're proud to be the first in Australia to screen it." Fahrenheit 9/11 is the first documentary to win the Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's The Silent World in 1956.