PAUL HAGGIS - HAGGIS DENIES NEW FILM JUMPS ON ANTI-IRAQ WAR BANDWAGON

Director PAUL HAGGIS has dismissed accusations of jumping on a Hollywood anti-war bandwagon with his new movie In The Valley Of Elah, insisting the Iraq war film was a "risky" one to make. In The Valley Of Elah, which stars Charlize Theron and Tommy Lee Jones, is one of a number of U.S. movies about Iraq set for release in the coming months. And Haggis claims he started work on the drama long before anti-Iraq war sentiments became acceptable in Hollywood. Speaking at the Venice Film Festival in Italy, he said, "I laugh when I hear these statements that Hollywood is jumping on the bandwagon because the American public is turning against the war. "We started work on the film in 2003, when the president (U.S. leader George W. Bush) had an 80 per cent approval rating, everyone even in the neighbourhood where I live was driving around with flags on their cars, and the president was saying it was unpatriotic to even question this war."