The director of The Apprentice smeared former President Donald Trump as a fascist at the movie’s world premiere Monday at the Cannes Film Festival.
Immediately after the screening at the festival’s main venue, a clearly excited Ali Abbasi addressed the crowd of global cinema elites, who enthusiastically applauded the movie.
“When we did this movie, everyone said, why do you want to make a movie about Trump? If you want to tell something about the world, do it in a nice way, in a metaphorical way,” the director said, before adding: “There is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism.”
The audience loudly cheered his comments.
Watch below:
Director Ali Abbasi makes the biggest political statement of #Cannes2024 so far during the 8-minute standing ovation for ‘The Apprentice’: ‘There is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism.’ pic.twitter.com/BGny0agRUW
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) May 20, 2024
Disney-Marvel actor Sebastian Stan plays Trump as a young man who is seeking to make his mark on New York and comes under the influence of Roy Cohn (Succession star Jeremy Strong). The movie also portrays Trump’s relationship with his father (Martin Donovan) and first wife, Ivana (Borat 2 actress Maria Bakalova).
The Apprentice, whose writing credits include journalist Gabriel Sherman, doesn’t have a U.S. distributor yet. The movie wasn’t financed by a Hollywood studio but rather through various foreign companies as well as domestic investors.
Ali Abbasi, who was born in Iran, rose to prominence with the movies Border and Holy Spider. The Apprentice marks his first American movie.
Potential distributors will have to consider some of the movie’s incendiary and highly contested accusations before plunking down money. The movie reportedly includes a scene where Trump rapes his wife, Ivana.
The Apprentice is competing for the top prize at Cannes, with the winners set to be announced on Saturday.
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