CANNES -- If there is an afterlife, Walt Disney might be unhappy in it today, thanks to a politically radical new movie his studio produced called Cradle Will Rock.

The Tim Robbins project made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last night as one of only two Hollywood studio-backed films in competition.

"Is Walt turning over in his grave?" star actor and maverick director Robbins asked rhetorically at a press conference yesterday. I had just asked him about the irony of making a pro-socialist 1930s-era movie for a studio founded by a man who has been accused of being pro-fascist at that time.

"I don't know," Robbins shrugged. And he doesn't much care.

Disney executives didn't try to censor the film, Robbins said. Cradle Will Rock is a light-hearted but politically serious look at how Orson Welles and a band of desperate actors -- some of them Communists -- tried to mount a pro-worker, anti-industry and anti-government play called The Cradle Will Rock during the Depression. The movie is loosely based on a true story.

"There was no pressure whatsoever," said Robbins, who wrote and directed the piece and was turned down by one other studio before going to Disney. Disney will release the movie in the fall through its Touchstone arm.

"There is a man named Joe Roth who runs Disney right now who actually read this script and gave me the go-ahead -- and total freedom to do whatever I wanted to do," Robbins said.

In the movie, right-wing politicians and their friends in the industry clamour for censorship. They launch a Congressional witchhunt that is later repeated in the McCarthy era. In 1990s America, Robbins said, the censorship comes from within.

"I think the enemy is self-censorship, to tell you the truth. In a free society the biggest danger is that you're afraid to the point where you censor yourself. There is freedom of expression if you choose to do it."

The movie stars Robbins' wife Susan Sarandon as an Italian Jewish fascist who was Mussolini's lover and who now befriends Nelson Rockefeller as Il Duce's cultural ambassador. John Cusack co-stars as Rockefeller.

Angus Macfadyen stars as the rampaging genius Orson Welles, while other memorable roles are played by Joan Cusack, Vanessa Redgrave, Ruben Blades, Cary Elwes, John Turturro, Emily Watson, Hank Azaria and Bill Murray.

SEXY SERIOUS SARANDON: As politically active as Robbins, Sarandon has spoken out on contentious political issues, including at the Oscars. She doesn't care about the criticism.

"I feel that my life is saved by the fact that I'm able to use my celebrity to be in some way a little flashlight for information," she said of trying the illuminate issues by speaking out.

"I don't think I risk so much, really," she said. "It would be harder to live with myself if we didn't take advantage of our celebrity."

Meanwhile, Sarandon is delighted she gets to tart it up for Cradle Will Rock by playing real-life character Margherita Sarfatti, a sexy fascist in high '30s fashion. Especially after playing nuns recently. "I wanted to so something in makeup," she giggled, "and I wanted to wear f'...-me pumps."

CITIZEN ANGUS: To play Orson Welles, Macfayden said his research was simple: "I just read a lot of books, watched a lot of movies and ate a lot of steaks."