Donald Trump Expose Stirs Controversy at Canadian Film Fest

TORONTO – Before President Barack Obama and Seth Meyers skewered Donald Trump at the recent White House Correspondents Dinner, indie filmmaker Anthony Baxter insists he exposed the tycoon developer as a bully trampling a bonny Scotland seaside to build a $1 billion golf course development. 

The result, You’ve Been Trumped, was rejected by the Edinburgh International Film Festival as too much of a political hot potato.

But Hot Docs gave Baxter’s expose about the Celebrity Apprentice mogul a world premiere on Tuesday night.

“This is a timely film, given his presidential ambitions. But audiences for the first time will see a different side of The Donald that they won’t like,” Baxter said. 

The David vs. Goliath tale, which includes music ifrom Jonsi, the lead singer of Sigur Ros, captures local Scottish farmer Michael Forbes defiantly standing in the way of Trump’s bulldozers as they run roughshod over an isolated stretch of sand dunes in Scotland.

Baxter, a radio and TV documentary maker for the BBC and Channel 4, even got thrown into jail for trespassing as he attempted to keep Trump and his son, Donald Jr., in his camera lens as they made a series of promotional visits to the golf course development in Scotland.

“You have homeowners and an environment that’s ripped apart and destroyed and he (Trump) is telling the TV cameras that he’s protecting the environment,” the filmmaker insisted. 

As Trump considers a presidential run, Baxter hopes his depiction of the property developer at war with a band of Scottish locals will find a U.S. distributor. 

“Donald Trump is a slick celebrity, but he’s also a bully that people need to open their eyes to,” Baxter said of the possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination.