Richard Burton (left) and John Hurt in the film based on George Orwell’s famous 1949 novel 1984.Richard Burton (left) and John Hurt in the film based on George Orwell’s famous 1949 novel 1984.

Nearly 200 independent movie theatres across the US on Tuesday screened the film version of George Orwell’s 1984 novel about a dystopian future, in what organisers said was a stand against US President Donald Trump’s administration.

The United State of Cinema, which arranged the screenings in 44 US states for one day only, said it was done 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’”.

The movie was also to be shown at five venues in Canada, one in England, one in Sweden and one in Croatia.

The 1949 book, which returned to the US bestseller list in January, features a Big Brother government that spies on its citizens and forces them into ‘doublethink’ or simultaneously accepting contradictory versions of the truth.

The movie was released in 1984 and starred John Hurt and Richard Burton.

New York resident Laura Fliegner and her husband attended an afternoon screening of 1984 at the Film Society of Lincoln Centre in Manhattan. “We think it makes a statement. Going to see it again, and remind ourselves what happens when you slide off a slippery slope,” she said.

Nicolas Rapold, who helped organise the Lincoln Centre screening and panel discussion that followed, said he expected at least 100 people to attend each of three free screenings at the venue.

The British novel was reprinted in January, decades after it was written, following the Trump administration’s defence of ‘alternative facts’, a term White House official Kellyanne Conway used during a dispute over the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration.

Adam Birnbaum, director of Film Programming for the Avon Theatre Film Centre in Stamford, Connecticut, said Orwell’s themes were as relevant today as they were nearly 70 years ago.

“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,” Birnbaum said.

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