"My client's interest is to end American energy independence, your interest is to end fracking, you understand that? "Correct, Yes super clear."

In a shocking new video expose, James O'Keefe's Project Veritas exposed the truth about the dark funding behind Hollywood's anti-fracking messaging machine. The video shows three Hollywood heavy hitters wooing money from a member of a Middle Eastern oil dynasty official to bankroll an anti-fracking movie. The Hollywood three take the money with full knowledge that the oil baron's ultimate goal is to destroy American energy independence.

The 20-minute video debuted at a "premiere" in Cannes, France on Wednesday.

In the investigation, an undercover journalist from Project Veritas posed as a member of a Middle Eastern oil dynasty ("Muhammed") and offered $9 million in funding to American filmmakers to fund an anti-fracking movie. Another Veritas reporter posed as an ad executive seeking to broker the deal for his client Muhammed to fund the American-made anti-fracking film.

The video features phone calls and meetings with actor Ed Begley Jr. (outspoken environmental activist and current Governor on the board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science), actress Mariel Hemingway and Josh Tickell (Sundance Film Festival Winner and the director of environmental message movies "Fuel," "The Big Fix" and "PUMP"). "Muhammed" offered $9 million for an anti-fracking film. "Muhammad" clearly states: "If Washington DC continues fracking, America will be energy efficient, and then they won't need my oil anymore."

In the same conversation, Actors Begley and Hemingway accept the funding and agree to hide the source of funds for the anti-fracking movie. Hemingway agreeing that those who will know the source of the funding are "only at this table...Team Begley even submitted a video of Oscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo offering his unwavering support for the fictitious anti-fracking film project.

(...) In a phone call to Tickell, the [fake] ad executive states: "My client's interest is to end American energy independence; your interest is to end fracking. And you guys understand that?"

Tickell's response: "Correct. Yes, super clear."

Tickell makes it clear on the tape that revealing the source of funding for an activist film can undermine its credibility. Tickell notes that the movie "Promised Land" undermined its own message because it was labeled as being funded by Image Nation Abu Dhabi. His advice: "So rather than putting that [the source of funding] up front, don't mention that."

In a follow-up call with Josh and Rebecca Tickell, Rebecca Tickell assures our investigator: "We would never tell about where the funding is coming from. That would be really awkward for us."

Josh Tickell: "We're confident that we can keep this zip locked, you know tight, air-tight forever. 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."

Often environmental extremists will ignore research, not because of its methodology or conclusions but because they say it is funded by "big oil."

This is not the first time an incident such as this was revealed. A 2012 feature film, "Promised Land" presented American oil and natural gas producers as money-grubbing villains purportedly poisoning rural American towns via fracking -- and it was financed in part by the royal family of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.