Variety: Conservative Docs Rare at Major Film Festivals

No matter what Michael Moore commits to celluloid over the next decade, chances are film festivals will welcome his far-left musings with open arms.

The same couldn’t be said for movies like Occupy Unmasked or 2016: Obama’s America, films which presented a right-of-center perspective.

Variety reports that conservative documentaries are a rarity on the film festival circuit.

Among fests, Sundance is hardly alone in offering a platform to left-leaning docs. Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, while Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side” is just one of many lefty Tribeca offerings.

Yet 2016’s producers skipped the festival circuit entirely, while the creator of the right-leaning They Come to America, which takes a hard look at the country’s immigration issue, submitted the film to 30 festivals without luck. The director of the genuinely fair and balanced Caucus, A.J. Schnack, says the fix is in when it comes to festival programming.

It’s no secret that film festivals tend to skew more toward liberal or progressive subjects,” Schnack says. “I had one tell me they couldn’t stand the sight of the people in (‘Caucus’).

Sundance senior programmer Caroline Libresco tells variety that the event’s selection process is “politically agnostic,” although founder Robert Redford’s progressive bona fides are well known.

Yet Libresco offers up a condescending reason why more liberal films eventually find their way into the annual Sundance event.

I’ve noticed that the large majority of (nonfiction films) tend to be galvanized and motivated by an interest in a complex view of the world and in perhaps disrupting the status quo.