Director Moore Tears Into Bush at Cannes Festival

Searing Fahrenheit 9/11 receives a 20-minute ovation

Film critics were warm in praise of the controversial director who later called in a news conference for America to pull out of Iraq.

"It is a such total mess. Their way of doing things has offended so many people," Moore said.

As the film starts, the screen goes dark. The sound is of planes crashing into the Twin Towers before the grief of victims' families is contrasted with Bush sitting, apparently impassively, in a Florida schoolroom for nine minutes after hearing the news.

Moore, using a mocking soundtrack to great effect, shows members of the bin Laden family being flown out of the U.S after September 11. Up surges the song: "I gotta get out of this place."

The film shows the raw emotion of Lila Lipscomb, doubled up with grief outside the White House as she contemplates the death of her soldier son in Iraq.

In one of the most moving scenes, she reads out the last letter received from him before his death.

Telling how she collapses on hearing the news over the phone, she said: "Your flesh just aches. You're not supposed to bury your own son."

Film may reach public in July