Cannes Film Festival: Sean Penn denounces Trump's "obscene" management of the Covid epidemic

"Politically and humanly obscene". The American actor and director Sean Penn, back at the Cannes Film Festival to present

, shot red balls Sunday on former US President Donald Trump and his management of the coronavirus epidemic. With more than 33 million cases and 600,000 deaths, the United States has paid a heavy price, even though in recent months the vaccination campaign has brought down the number of hospitalizations and deaths.

"It really felt like someone, with his submachine gun, was shooting at the most vulnerable communities from a turret installed in the White House," the actor said, in response to a question during the traditional press conference. following the screening of his film, very applauded the day before.

"In our country, in the world too, we were let down, neglected, ill-informed. It was an affront to truth and reason, during what was clearly obscene management, humanly and politically."

Committed filmmaker

In the running for the Palme d'Or, the filmmaker, who had invested in Haiti in the past or the victims of Hurricane Katrina, took matters in hand from the first months of the epidemic with his association Core Response, creating test centers in Los Angeles and then vaccination in Los Angeles and Chicago, alongside food distributions for the communities most affected by the economic crisis generated by the lockdowns.

In his new film, presented in Cannes five years after the bitter failure of

, the filmmaker plays a role opposed to his civic commitment, that of an unscrupulous and indebted father, a source of disappointment for his children. , notably his daughter, played on screen by the star's own daughter, Dylan Penn.

The filmmaker said that it was actor Matt Damon who got the better of his initial reluctance to star in his own film: "I made a final attempt not to act by sending the script to Matt Damon, who been generous enough to read it quickly and remind me. Not to tell me he could do it, nor that he could not do it, but to tell me that I was a jerk not to do it myself and to grab it. this opportunity to play with my daughter. "