Michael Moore’s most recent documentary, Sicko, will premiere this Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival, and is scheduled for US release by Lionsgate on June 29. And suddenly, as if perfectly timed by the Weinstein Co. rather than the U.S. Treasury, Moore is being investigated for possibly violating America’s trade embargo with Cuba by going to the “forbidden” country to make a portion of his film. Cuba is even saying that Moore is a victim of censorship (read about it here). It doesn’t get much juicier than that.

In The Hollywood Reporter’s piece on the matter, “Healthy debate surrounds Moore’s docu ‘Sicko,’” has this to say about the publicity stunt:

Lionsgate and the Weinstein Co. are making the Treasury Department’s investigation a key focus of their “Sicko” campaign. The Weinstein Co. has hired David Boies, the chief attorney in Al Gore’s recount battle against George Bush in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, to help on the “Sicko” case. Chris Lehane, a political consultant on the film, said in an interview that TWC and Lionsgate would “go to the mattresses for this film and fight the Bush efforts in every way possible.”

On the anti-Moore side, News Corp. properties Fox News and the New York Post have run editorials and commentaries slamming the filmmaker.

While the Treasury Dept. triggered the current contretemps, “It’s Harvey (Weinstein) up to his old tricks, doing his Barnum & Bailey act,” said one prominent studio marketing executive. “It’s a textbook ‘create a controversy’ to rev up all the people who hate the government and bring attention to the movie, which is what film marketing is all about. A-plus to them.”

The funny thing is that, according to a press release about the film’s release date, Harvey Weinstein sees Sicko as “less controversial” than Fahrenheit 9-11.

“I’ve seen this movie with Republicans and Democrats, and this is one time Michael has sort of unified everyone,” [Weinstein] said. “The health care industry might not have a very good July Fourth.”

Here’s to so-called unification. We’ll have to see how that works out.