Spike Lee criticises Trump for ‘putting Asian Americans in danger’

BlacKkKlansman director took issue with the US President’s use of the term ‘Chinese virus’

Spike Lee has spoken out about the postponement of the Cannes Film Festival due to the coronavirus pandemic, and criticised the behaviour of US president Donald Trump.

"The president of the United States needs to stop calling this the Chinese virus," the Do the Right Thing filmmaker told Variety. "Please stop doing that.”

“He’s putting Asian Americans in this country in danger.”

Lee had been selected as the Jury President for Cannes 2020; in the same interview, he also spoke about the decision to cancel the festival.

“The world has changed and it’s changing every day", Lee said. "People are dying and France’s president has said, several times — I’m paraphrasing — ‘We are at war.’ We are in a war-like time.”

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“The stuff that we love has to take a back seat", he continued. "Movies, TV, sports, the NBA is a global sport, baseball. So many things have been postponed, and I agree with this move.”

Cannes is far from the only major cultural event to be cancelled or postponed because of coronavirus – Glastonbury festival and the Eurovision Song Contest have also been called off for 2020.

You can read a full list of everything fim-related affected by the pandemic here.