You've Been Trumped

You've Been Trumped

The film director who was jailed while seeking the truth about Donald Trump's destruction of one of the United Kingdom's last stretches of coastal wilderness, has appealed to Australians to support a campaign to hold him to account for his "environmental crimes."

"When Donald Trump visited Australia in September, many people reportedly paid over $1000 just to hear him speak," says Anthony Baxter, who funded his film himself, and is now running a "crowd-sourcing" fundraising campaign on the internet to fund worldwide theatrical distribution.

"Even one donation like that to our campaign would go a long way to hold him to account for his actions, and ensure that more of our natural world isn't sacrificed to short term economic gain."

In October, You've Been Trumped won its 4th major award, scooping the prestigious Victor Rabinowitz Social Justice Award at the star-studded Hamptons International Film Festival.

You've Been Trumped has created a furore in the UK, where it has won Britain's top environmental prize for documentaries for exposing what the Jury said was "one of the most shocking environmental crimes in recent UK history." Mr Trump responded by calling the film "boring" and suggested the publicity would simply help him sell more green fees.

Audiences have disagreed, packing theatres in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow in numbers unprecedented for a documentary film. A special screening was also held in the Scottish Parliament.

Called "an amazing film" in the Guardian newspaper, and a "a runaway success" by the Times of London, You've Been Trumped was also handpicked by Michael Moore for his Traverse City Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize.

The BBC's Jeremy Hardy wrote: Anthony Baxter, with a calm but steely determination, exposes the way a ruthless, greedy thug can corrupt the state, the police, the media and academia. Baxter is intimidated, harassed and bullied. But he succeeds in giving us a film as magnificent as the landscape he tries to save, and as warm and principled as the people who live in it.

Baxter was arrested and jailed during the making of the film after interviewing Trump's head green-keeper, an incident that is shown in You've Been Trumped. Criminal charges were eventually dropped after the National Union of Journalists complained that the arrest was an "unprecedented" interference in "the work of journalists simply trying to do their job."

"More than anyone, Australians understand how precious the world's untouched coastal regions are," says Baxter. "I urge everyone in Brisbane to come out and see the film to, and make up their own minds about whether hearing Donald Trump speak is worth $1000."

Last month, after a special screening at the Scottish parliament, Member of Parliament Patrick Harvie declared: It's scandalous that the Scottish Government brushed aside the highest level of environmental protection to allow this disgraceful project to go ahead. Trump's vision is one where the super-rich fly in for a round of golf and drinks at the bar before jetting off again, and the most that local people might get is the chance to carry their bags.