Michael Moore offers new film for free

Michael Moore (pictured), the maker of the award-winning anti-Iraq war movie Fahrenheit 9/11, has released his latest documentary for free on the internet in an attempt to encourage young people to vote - preferably for Democratic nominee Barack Obama - in November's US presidential election.

Moore's Slacker Uprising, which is available from today, is a feature-length film documenting Moore's tour of swing states during the 2004 presidential election year, and is available on several websites, including iTunes and Amazon.com, who Moore persuaded to provide streaming or downloading services for free. In a statement, he said that he didn't "want to see a dime out of this", adding: "The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turn-out of young voters at the polls in November."

While the movie chronicles the director's efforts to get young people on either side of the political spectrum to vote, he said the documentary was also a "tribute to the young voters who are going to save this country from four more years of Republican rule".

Moore has long been known as a firebrand filmmaker. He took on large corporations in 1989's Roger & Me and the US gun industry in 2002's Bowling for Columbine, which earned him an Oscar. Slacker Uprising was made for about $2 million, comes on the heels of Moore's blistering expose of the US health care system, Sicko, in 2007.