Michael Moore, the writer/director behind such polemical films as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, has suggested that the actor Meryl Streep run for president on a Democrat ticket.

Having been asked whether any of the strong female role models shown in his new film, Where to Invade Next – which presents progressive European societies as alternatives to contemporary America – put him in mind of candidate Hillary Clinton, Moore declined to comment directly. Instead, the director said that the US was at a tipping point, in part thanks to Patricia Arquette’s rousing Oscar speech earlier this year calling for gender equality in pay. Moore said that Streep, who lent vocal support to Arquette from the Academy Awards audience, was pushing hard to convince the three more states required for ratification of an equal rights amendment.

“The Republicans knew Reagan knew how to talk to American people and get them to vote. In this case you have a beloved person who happens to be in the movies but is also smart and has a heart and is curious,” said Moore.

Where to Invade Next has Moore touring a variety of mostly European nations held up as inspirational examples for the US. This includes Iceland, where the world’s first female president was elected in 1980, and was felt to have positively affected gender representation across the board. “Even though I’m a guy listening to these people,” he said, “when women have power there’s that shift. Everybody has it better in those countries. It’s just so obvious. But I don’t think that just to be electing an African American president or a female president is going to fix that. I think there’s much deeper issues.”

By contrast, Moore said he found the figure of 20% of women in the US Senate dismaying. “In 100 years from now they’ll think, ‘Wow, these people thought they lived in a democracy when it was controlled by the minority gender.’ The minority runs the show and funds the show. It’s called apartheid. And that has to change, and soon.”

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Moore travels to nearly a dozen countries in all in the film, in search of an aspirational, progressive piece of legislation – generous holiday pay and welfare in Italy, impressive school meals in France – that the US could adopt. It became known by the crew by the name “Mike’s Happy Movie”. “No problems, all solutions,” said Moore, adding that the film encouraged the audience to “examine our American soul”.

Its uncharacteristically chirpy tone was not as much of a departure as some may suspect, said Moore. “I’ve always believed cynicism is just a different form of narcissism. Most people have a conscience and know right from wrong and they’re just afraid or ignorant, and once those things get fixed we’ll stop living in fear and being stupid.”

His object in cherry-picking inspirational legislation was, he said, to “pick the flowers and not the weeds”. But his selective approach to the positive and negative about each nation did make him trepidatious about how critics would react. Imagining their notices, he said: “‘Italy? Are you kidding? That place is a fucking mess! He didn’t go to Greece!’ I can just hear it. The mainstream media does a really good job of telling you night after night, day after day how all the rest of the world is just so bad and horrible and sucks and they pay so much tax and it’s just awful. What I want is, every few years, just two hours of your time to present the other version. The truth.”

Poster boy .... Capitalism: A Love Story

Where to Invade Next is Moore’s first film since 2009’s Capitalism: A Love Story. That film ended with a call-to-arms for his audience, which the director said paid dividends a couple of years later with Occupy New York. His new film, too, makes a strong case for the merits of direct action. “After Ferguson and Black Lives Matter I thought it was important to re-enlist and be part of what needs to happen. We need to get off our asses and do something and be inspired by what we believe,” he said. “You don’t need to watch another documentary to show you how fucked up this thing is or how fucked up that thing is.”

Moore’s perspective changed, he said, following changes in his personal life – he turned 60 and divorced his wife of 23 years in 2014, and experienced unexpected optimism following the death of his father.

“I thought I would be just depressed for a year or more, and the opposite happened,” he said. “I felt more alive and wanting to live. I decided to start living differently. Now I’m just my own self and that feels good. I hope I have 30 or 40 years more to go and I hope that they’re not going to be rolling tape of that next week.”

Moore was speaking after the film’s world premiere on the opening night of the 40th Toronto film festival. A 30-second standing ovation greeted the closing credits, and a vocal crowd appreciated the themed gifts: a pencil made by Faber Castell, who featured in the film as model employees, as well as Slovenian college application forms for those who fancied studying abroad for free.

The optimism of the new generation encouraged him, Moore said. “There aren’t as many haters. They know they got a raw fucking deal and we – my generation – gave it to them. That’s not right and we should do something about it.” Meanwhile, the decriminalisation of drugs appeared to be underway, he said, while he also predicted a large-scale release of black voters from prison.

None the less, Moore’s buoyancy did not obliterate a fundamental concern. “In 100 years,” he said, “the planet will still be here, but we may not be. The planet knows what we’ve been up to. The planet’s staying and we’re dying. It’s pretty good at kicking certain species off it when it gets tired of them.”