Michael Moore has offered $20,000 to help bailout Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, reports TMZ.

Moore just blogged, he will do anything he can to keep WikiLeaks “alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.”

Swedish prosecutors are challenging Assange’s bail, so he will remain in custody until that’s worked out.

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CBC.ca is reporting that Michael Moore is starting a comedy festival in his hometown of Traverse City, Michigan. The documentary filmmaker wants the festival to feature films, live acts, and other offerings starting this February. Moore has teamed up with Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Jeff Garlin to produce the festival from February 19-21.

“What’s really the best time of year for a comedy festival in Traverse City?” Moore said Thursday. “Really, it’s February when the wind chill is 20-below.” It is believed this festival can be a huge boost for the local economy and lift the spirits of economically ailing Michigan.

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Michael Moore’s documentary about the collapse of the global economy will hit theatres Oct. 2, the film’s distributors announced Thursday.

According to Overture and Paramount Vintage, the still-untitled documentary will explore the “root causes of the economic meltdown,” as well as “take a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans” that resulted in the financial meltdown.

“The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth,” Moore said in a statement. “So they systematically set out to fleece the American people.”

The distributors noted that the movie will hit theatres almost a year to the day that U.S. Congress passed the country’s first economic stimulus package.

Moore is known for making provocative documentaries, from his 1989 breakout film “Roger and Me” to the Academy Award-winning “Bowling For Columbine” and the controversial “Fahrenheit 9/11.” His most recent film, 2007′s “Sicko,” took a critical look at the U.S. health-care industry.

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Michael Moore is turning his camera lens on the Canadian elections with a recent trip up to Sault Ste. Marie.

The controversial filmmaker was in the Ontario city Wednesday to film an all-candidates debate at a local college.

Most of the candidates also joined Moore for a group interview and shared a bottle of Molson Canadian for the cameras.

Although the filmmaker didn’t reveal any details about his newest project, he had high praise for the city, which is just across the river from his home state of Michigan.

“Sault Ste. Marie is a great place. I love the time I’ve spent here and we thought, ‘Why not do it here?’” Moore told the Sault Star newspaper.

His last visit to the city was in 2005, when he showed up for the Shadows of the Mind film festival.

Moore revealed earlier this year that he will release a sequel to his 2004 film “Fahrenheit 9/11″ next year.

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Filming for the second installment of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 is slated to begin this month.

The documentary film maker says that he wants to look at the way the United States profile as an industrial nation and world power has changed since 9/11.

Moore says that he doesn’t want to interfere with the 2008 presidential elections and will release the doc in 2009.

Fahrenheit 911 (part 1) was one of the most successful political documentaries of all time and won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004

Moore is currently in Cannes promoting the new film.

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Filmmaker MICHAEL MOORE has dismissed criticism his healthcare documentary SICKO is irrelevant to audiences outside the U.S., arguing the movie acts as a warning to other countries.

The film chronicles the struggles of everyday Americans as they attempt to get adequate healthcare, a problem Moore believes is universal.

He tells website Moviehole.net, “I don’t think the problem is uniquely American. If I were living in (another) country, I’d be worried about what your government is doing to snip away at the social safety net that you’ve had for many years, taking money away from health care, education, social services and the film should act as a warning to you.

“If you have a government that wants to be more American-like, watch this film and take a look at what you get when you have a society that’s structured more like our society.

“I would be somewhat frightened if I were living under another government watching this, and thinking about how my government keeps talking about privatisation and outsourcing and these sorts of things, and creating a two-tier system – one for the haves and one for the have nots.

“So I think the film is very relevant outside of America.” (GES/WNWCMVH/KL)

(c) 2007 WORLD ENTERTAINMENT NEWS NETWORK LTD. All global rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or re-distributing permitted.

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Filmmaker MICHAEL MOORE insists he doesn’t care his new documentary SICKO has been leaked online – he’s just glad people get to watch his movie.

Video-sharing website YouTube.com was forced to pull links to pirated versions of the U.S. healthcare expose last weekend after learning as many as 600 people had seen the film illegally online.

A 124-minute version of Sicko, which is released across America on June 29, was posted on YouTube by two users on Friday.

Distributor Weinstein Co alerted YouTube bosses after they learned of the leak, and the links to the footage were immediately removed.

But Moore thinks the leak may even help Sicko at the box-office.

He tells MTV, “I’m just happy that people get to see my movies. I’m not a big supporter of the copyright laws in this country. I thought Napster was a good idea.

“I don’t understand bands or filmmakers or whatever who oppose sharing, having their work be shared with people, because I think it only increases your fanbase.

“You know, when I was a kid… I remember someone giving me a cassette tape of an album called London Calling by a group called The Clash. Suddenly I became a Clash fan. From that point on, I bought their albums and I went to their concerts. And they ended up making money off me – because somebody gave me a free tape of their music.”

(c) 2007 WORLD ENTERTAINMENT NEWS NETWORK LTD. All global rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or re-distributing permitted.

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Michael Moore can’t escape controversy when it comes to his film “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

The filmmaker is being sued by a war veteran who claims that Moore used an interview he gave to NBC News out of context and portrayed his as anti-war, E! Online reports.

Sgt. Peter Damon, 33, filed an $85 million lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court in Massachusetts last week.

The lawsuit claims that the film “creates a substantially fictionalized and falsified implication of a wounded serviceman who was left behind when Plaintiff was not left behind but supported, financially and emotionally, by the active assistance of the president, the United States and his family, friends, acquaintances and community.”

In the film, Damon, a double amputee, is seen on a gurney talking about how much pain he is in and how the painkillers take the edge off. His scene is preceded by a Democrat claiming President Bush is leaving all kinds of veterans behind.

Moore has not commented on the lawsuit as of yet.

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