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If Michael Moore Helped Tip an Election, He'd Be Nanni Moretti

Left-leaning actor-director Nanni Moretti arrives for the Cannes screening of "Il Caimano" with actresses Margherita Buy, left and Jasmine Trinca. (By Francois Mori -- Associated Press)

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"Before the movie was released, there was an absurd debate between journalists and politicians about my movie, which nobody had seen," Moretti says. "Strangely enough, everybody thought I had made a propaganda movie. And I just let them talk. Because I knew when they saw it, it would not be the movie they expected."

It was attacked?

Moretti chortles theatrically. He eyes us. Are we a fool?

"Right-wingers attacked it. Yes. Some right-wingers called me a Nazi Maoist."

Very Italian.

He continues, telling how a political staffer had "written this manifesto against me, for the politician was himself a former left-left-winger. But without being moralist, that is a real Italian phenomenon. Many people in many countries change their minds. But in Italy we have a lot of them, in quantity and quality, who went from the left to the right."

Does he think the movie changed the outcome of the election?

Moretti is not sure.

But he is glad how things worked out? His movie at Cannes, Berlusconi out.

Moretti raises an eyebrow and shrugs. He appears happier. But not necessarily happy.

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