NICE, France – James O'Keefe says his secretly recording of actors Ed Begley, Jr. and Mariel Hemingway meeting with two men pretending to represent Middle East oil interests who want to fund an anti-fracking movie is just the tip of the iceberg.
"We have more videos, more celebrities," O'Keefe told FOX411 in an interview Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival where he premiered his film "Hollywood's War on U.S. Energy." "So we're going to hold back a lot of ammunition."
O'Keefe said he hosted a screening for "Hollywood's War on U.S. Energy" in Cannes because "this is the celebrities' back yard, their playground." He said he expects Hollywood to come after him after the controversial new 20-minute film premieres.
Mariel Hemingway's manager Tracy Columbus hinted at legal action, telling the Hollywood Reporter O'Keefe hay have "legal issues on this one.""
O'Keefe points out the recording were made in a public place, and trusts his First Amendment rights will trump any legal recourse taken by the subjects of his film.
In the film, Begley, Jr. and Hemingway take a meeting with a man identified as "Mohammed" and an ad executive helping to facilitate the deal. They are meeting on behalf of Josh and Rebecca Tickell, the husband and wife team behind 2008's environmental-themed movie "Fuel," who are looking for money to make an anti-fracking movie "Fracked."
"They were looking for $4.5 million for a documentary and $4.5 million for a narrative, that's what they were looking for," O'Keefe said.
During the conversation over food in a restaurant at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Begley and Hemingway seem to agree to keep the source of the potential money for the anti-fracking film under wraps because it wouldn't look good for a nation that owes its wealth to fossil fuels funding a movie that goes after fossil fuels.
"Begley said [in the meeting] Hollywood and Washington are a lot like, using smoke and mirrors," O'Keeffe said. "Its pretty clear from the video that Begley is saying 'I have no problem keeping this at the table.' If he had any integrity at all, he would have a problem.
Begley has since explained that he had a hard time understanding the people at the meeting because he is hard of hearing, and was just going along to be polite. In a statement on his personal website he listed his environmental bona fides and said "it is clear that he has doctored video and audio in my piece as he has done in the past" before offering his apologies "for any embarrassment of difficulty that this has brought to anyone that I have known or worked with."
Hemingway issued a statement as well. "Based on my lifelong passion for film making and the environment, and my desire to help a friend get an educational movie produced, it appears I fell prey to cowards who manufactured a situation to suit their political agenda," she said. "Though slightly disheartened, I'll continue to use my voice to shine the light on positive and proactive means of bettering the quality of life for us all.”
The Tickells are also recorded on phone conversations talking to fake representatives of fake oil interests.
"We're confident that we can keep this zip-locked. You know, tight. Tight. Air-tight forever," Tickell says in one conversation included in the film. "If we don't protect who is kind of funding this thing … if we have to disclose that or that becomes a necessary part of it, the whole enterprise will not work."
The Tickells told the Daily Beast that they have contacted local law enforcement and the FBI to see if O'Keefe broke the law recording their phone calls.
Josh Tickell also told the web site: "We said things we shouldn’t have said, we named people we shouldn’t have named. In that regard we are guilty, full stop."
The Tickells have since released a video on the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo to help raise funds for the movie in which he addressed O'Keefe's video. "I'm about to tell you a story of the lengths that some people will go to discourage the transition to green energy," Tickell says. "If it wasn't so serious it might even be kind of funny."
So what does O'Keefe think his film will do to the Tickells' chances at funding "Fracked"?
"I have no say in how that plays out," O'Keefe said. "I just let the film speak for itself."
O'Keefe is best know for undercover videos involving ACORN, where he posed as a flamboyant pimp and recorded workers agreeing to help him with tax issues, and NPR, where he recorded a fund raiser bad-mouthing the Tea Party. Both recordings resulted in resignations, and ACORN disbanded in 2010 when its federal funding was pulled. He also pleaded guilty in 2010 to misdemeanor charges stemming from his break-in at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) office.
As Begley, Jr., mentioned, O'Keefe has been accused in the past of selectively editing his videos, so he says that in the interest of "complete transparency," he has published raw interviews and full transcripts of the interviews used in the film online.
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