Penn urges Hollywood to rethink its 'bloodlust'

The actor and film director Sean Penn launched a scathing attack yesterday on President George Bush and the "bloodlust" of Hollywood.

Penn said American film makers and politicians needed to rethink their work in response to the 11 September attacks. "In the film aspect as well as the political aspect we have always had a bloodlust," he said. "We have a president who indulges in terms like 'good and evil' and that's in a tradition of too many Hollywood movies. It's time to criticise these movies and it's more importantly time to replace them."

Penn, 41, who was speaking during a visit to the Cannes film festival, is one of 11 directors involved in a project to mark 11 September. Each is making a film about the attacks, which will be 11 minutes and nine seconds long and shot in one frame. The work, entitled 11-09-01, will be released on the first anniversary of the atrocity.

The contributors include the British director Ken Loach and Mira Nair, director of Monsoon Wedding. Loach said: "One of the many interesting things about September 11 is the way the meaning of what happened on that day became hijacked in the way that the planes were hijacked. The meaning of those events became fitted into the political agenda. There is an element of subversion about this project which appeals to me.

"I hope it will have different meanings, different perspectives to the way in which the events have been interpreted."