Theatres in US theatres screened 1984 on Tuesday, April 4 to protest against the fascist tendencies of Trump administration. The movie is an adaptation of a novel with the same title and was released in 1984.
Written by George Orwell in 1949, the book revolves around a dystopian future featuring a Big Brother government forcing its citizens to "doublethink," or simultaneously accepting contradictory versions of the truth. The film adaptation starred John Hurt and Richard Burton.
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Rings a bell? Yes, the movie draws parallel to Trump's post-truth politics. The United State of Cinema, which arranged the screenings, told Reuters that it aimed to "take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as 'alternative facts.'"
"Our concern is the idea that the only answer is the one coming from the mouthpiece running the (Trump) administration and that there's this effort to sort of snuff out anything but that," Adam Birnbaum, director of Film Programming for the Avon Theatre Film Center in Stamford, Connecticut, told the news agency. The proceeds from the Avon Theatre screenings will be defrayed for "future educational screenings" of "1984" with the local Stamford public schools, the website added.
The trailer:
The screenings were followed by discussions. "If nothing else, we hope that people will continue to be voices of opposition to some of the practices that are currently being employed by government," he said.
Apart from the theatres in 44 states, the film was rereleased in five other venues including Canada, England, Sweden and Croatia.
The British novel was reprinted in January, more than six and half decades later, following the Trump administration's defense of "alternative facts".
After the concept of alternative facts made headlines, the novel ranked No. 6 on Amazon's best-seller list. After Kellyanne Conway defended Sean Spicer's claims about the size of Trump's inauguration crowd with the phrase "alternative facts".
