The premiere of Sicko, Michael Moore's scathing documentary about the U.S. health-care system, received enthusiastic applause from an audience packing the 2,000-seat theatre at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday.

Moore's controversial movie doesn't open until late June, but was screened Saturday at the French festival.

Filmmaker Michael Moore, seen here in 2005, visited Cuba with several Ground Zero rescue workers and got them medical care in his new documentary, Sicko.
(Canadian Press)

Variety magazine calls Sicko an "entertaining and affecting dissection of the American health-care industry," and Stephen Schaefer of the Boston Globe wrote Sicko is "a very strong and very honest documentary about a health system that's totally corrupt and that is without any care for its patients."

The 53-year-old filmmaker, who won an Academy Award for Bowling for Columbine in 2002, is a favourite of the festival, which bestowed him with the prestigious Palme d'Or in 2004 for Fahrenheit 911.

Sicko has already landed the controversial filmmaker in hot water. The documentary contains scenes of Moore taking several Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba to get free medical care. The U.S. Treasury Department is investigating Moore for breaking the U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba.

Moore claims it wasn't a publicity stunt.

"I'm the one who's personally liable for potential fines or jail, so I don't take it as lightly," said Moore, who added that he had to spirit a master copy of the film to another country out of fears the American government might seize it.

Movie is a 'call to action'

In Sicko, Moore features stories of Americans, who have been refused vital treatment and are facing financial ruin because of the U.S. health-care system. The director also travels to Britain, Canada and France to highlight each country's public health system.

'Why would we allow nearly 50 million Americans to go without any kind of health coverage …?"—Michael Moore

"The bigger issue in the film is, 'Who are we as a people?'" Moore said at a news conference in Cannes.

"Why would we allow nearly 50 million Americans to go without any kind of health coverage … That's not America. That's not the America I want to see exist."

Moore said he went to Cuba because government officials claimed that terror suspects being held at Guantanamo, the U.S. naval base in Cuba, were receiving first-rate health care.

"The point was not to go to Cuba but to go to America, to go to American soil … being in Cuba was just an accident in a sense," he said.

In the movie, the filmmaker demands through a megaphone that Guantanamo officials accept eight Americans, including three Ground Zero rescue workers, for medical care. He then takes them to a Cuban hospital where they are treated free of charge.

John Graham, who was working near the Twin Towers when the planes crashed into the buildings, spent 31 hours helping out initially, and returned for several months to sift through the carnage.

Graham was later diagnosed with lung problems, burns on his esophagus, chronic sinusitis and post-traumatic stress disorder. He stopped working in 2004, split from his wife and can barely keep up with support payments.

The Cuban hospital provided Graham with five days of medical tests as well as medication for his reflux problems.

"I think when Americans see this they are not going to focus on Cuba or Fidel Castro," Moore said. The director says he wants Sicko to be a "call to action."

"We are never going to have real change in the United States if the public doesn't see that it will only happen when they rise up out of their theatre seats and do something about it."

Moore held a private showing on May 15 in New York City for 9/11 emergency workers.

With files from the Associated Press