UK film at Cannes says terror fears exaggerated

[dave502d]

CANNES, France (Reuters) - A British documentary arguing U.S. neo-conservatives have exaggerated the terror threat is set to rock the Cannes Film Festival Saturday, the way "Fahrenheit 9/11" stirred emotions here a year ago.

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"The Power of Nightmares" re-injected politics into the festival that seemed eager to steer clear of controversy this year after American Michael Moore won top honors in 2004 for his film deriding President Bush's response to terror.

At a screening late Friday ahead of its gala Saturday, "The Power of Nightmares" by filmmaker and senior BBC producer Adam Curtis kept an audience of journalists and film buyers glued to their seats and taking notes for a full 2-1/2 hours.

The film, a non-competition entry, argues that the fear of terrorism has come to pervade politics in the United States and Britain even though much of that angst is based on carefully nurtured illusions.

It says Bush and U.S. neo-conservatives, as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are exaggerating the terror threat in a manner similar to the way earlier generations of leaders inflated the danger of communism and the Soviet Union.

It also draws especially controversial symmetries between the history of the U.S. movement that led to the neo-cons and the roots of the ideas that led to radical Islamism -- two conservative movements that have shaped geopolitics since 1945.

Curtis's film portrays neo-cons Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld as counterparts to Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri in the two respective movements.

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1033791&tw=wn_wire_story

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

1. watch it online here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm

[Henny Penny]

2. It is a quality piece of work

well worth the time!

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

3. Hopefully the Beeb will have something

equally brilliant this year. It's great to see it getting played at Cannes though.

[NewHampshireDem]

7. If that doesn't work ... try Chomsky Torrents

http://www.chomskytorrents.org/Torrents.php

Lots o' good stuff there :)

[mr blur]

4. Saw it when it was on TV here

Excellent stuff

[InfoMinister]

5. Have They Shown It On FSTV or Link TV?

I think it would be something people who watch that channel would be interested in seeing. It has a lot of interesting information.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Watched it on line a few months ago

This should be shown on PBS, although that's not too likely with the neocons in charge.

Barring that, it needs a nationwide distributor or a chance to make the national film society circuit.

[applegrove]

8. I saw it too. I don't know that I agree with all they claimed. I think

certain kinds of fundamentalism or Utopian thinking is always dangerous.

But it was important to see.