What to expect from Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next?

Nobody is surprised to learn of a documentary filmmaker revealing secrets through his work, however, it did come as a surprise to the international film world when we learned that Michael Moore had managed to keep his own film a complete secret.

It is said to be a hard-hitting documentary on America’s infinite war, entitled Where To Invade Next. And what is so good about this announcement is that we don’t have to wait long before we see it. The top team at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will screen the documentary for the first time to the public on its opening night.

Moore seems back into his element with this film, which examines the US government’s thirst for war, fuelled by the arms industry’s lobbying. His enthusiasm shines through when he calls the doc “epic in nature”.

It is remarkable though that – regardless of the subject – nothing about this project has been leaked previously to the announcement.

Moore says he used a small team and the turnaround for shooting the project across three continents was practically overnight.

Another factor that likely played a role in keeping things under wraps was Moore’s fear for the NSA. Usually the King of Twitter, Moore refrained from speaking out on social media until the film was a done deal.

“We’ve been very diligent about keeping this under cover,” Moore said in a Q&A on Twitter’s live-streaming app Periscope. Having been very outspoken in the past about the US’s attitude on war and homeland security, plus not to mention the Edward Snowden affair, Moore’s fears and the way he treated this project, are probably justified.

But it is this determination and passion for the topic that gives us hope that, as TIFF’s team says, this new Moore documentary could be his best to date.

If you want to know more on how TIFF managed to bag this project for their opening night, take a look here on Indiewire, where Anne Thompson talks to TIFF’s artistic director Cameron Bailey.