Spike Lee tells Cannes Black people still 'hunted down like animals'

Spike Lee denounced violence against Black people in the US at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday, saying he hoped the time had come that “Black people stop being hunted down like animals.”

The American director, who is the first Black person to lead the festival’s prestigious jury that will pick the winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or, was speaking at the panel’s press conference on the first day of the French Riviera spectacular.

He noted that little has changed since his 1989 film Do the Right Thing, in which a Black youth, Radio Raheem, is killed by police.