Cannes Film Festival 2021: Jury member Spike Lee says ‘world run by gangsters’

American director Spike Lee is leading the jury of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and he said that he was “honoured to be the first person of the African diaspora” chosen for the prestigious position.

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He used his favourite nickname for Donald Trump, “Agent Orange”, and sported a cap reading “1619”, referring to the year in which the first slaves arrived in the Americas, reports France24.com.

“This world is run by gangsters,” Lee said in response to an emotional appeal from a Georgian journalist who spoke about a recent crackdown on a Pride celebration in her country.

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“Agent Orange, this guy in Brazil, and Putin are gangsters. They have no morals, no scruples. That’s the world we live in. We have to speak out against gangsters like that,” Lee said.

Spike Lee is the first black person to lead jury at 73rd Cannes film festival and many of his films have been shown at Cannes in the past, including “BlacKkKlansman” .

Asked about his 1989 classic “Do the Right Thing” on race relations in his native New York, Lee mentioned recent victims of police violence and said: “You would hope 30-some fucking years later, that black people would stop being hunted down like animals.”

Apart from Lee, other jury members spoke of their feelings about attending Cannes after nearly 18 months of pandemic, which cancelled the 2020 edition.

“The fact that we’re all here together is a miracle, so that makes it even more of an honour to be here,” said Song Kang-ho, star of the last Palme winner, “Parasite”.

French-Senegalese actor-director Mati Diop said she felt it was the first festival of “a new era”.

“It’s very strange to watch a wave of cinema after an absence of it,” she added.

Cannes Film Festival didn’t take place last year because of COVID-19.