MOSCOW, May 21 (RIA Novosti) – A video revealing that American filmmakers are willing to produce an anti-fracking film while hiding the source of their funding from Middle Eastern oil interests will be unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, The Hollywood Reporter said.
Conservative journalist James O'Keefe says he duped an outspoken environmental activist, Ed Begley Jr., and Mariel Hemingway, a Golden Globe- and Oscar-nominated actress, into accepting $9 million in funding for the movie from an undercover journalist from Project Veritas disguised as “Muhammed,” a member of a Middle Eastern oil dynasty.
In the video, “Muhammad” clearly says “if Washington, DC continues fracking, America will be energy efficient, and then they won’t need my oil anymore.” The meeting, which appears to have been secretly recorded, took place several months ago at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The video also includes audio from phone conversations between Muhammad's representatives and Josh Tickell, a Sundance Film Festival winner and the director of environmental movies “Fuel,” “The Big Fix,” and “PUMP.”
In the phone call, Tickell says “we’re confident that we can keep this zip locked, you know tight, air-tight forever. If we don’t protect who is kind of funding this thing, if we have to disclose that or that becomes a necessary part of it, the whole enterprise will not work.”
“This latest investigation shows the dark side of Hollywood’s environmental movement. Hollywood is willing to take and conceal money from Middle Eastern oil interests in order to advance their cause of destroying American energy independence,” said Project Veritas founder and president James O’Keefe.
The video comes amid an energy boom in the United States and the increasing use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Fracking has gained wide global attention as a method of oil and gas extraction. Its benefits are controversial, since the process involves injecting liquids with carcinogenic chemicals into rock formations. The chemicals stay in the ground and can pollute soil and groundwater. The water used in extraction can later be treated, but its subsequent safety has not been proven.
