Cannes (AFP)

"Politically and humanly obscene": the American actor and director Sean Penn, back at the Cannes Film Festival with "Flag Day", shot red balls on Sunday on former US President Donald Trump and his management of the epidemic of coronavirus.

With more than 33 million cases and 600,000 deaths, the United States has paid a heavy price, although in recent months the vaccination campaign has brought down the number of hospitalizations and deaths.

"We really had the impression that someone with his submachine gun, was shooting at the most vulnerable communities from a turret installed in the White House," he 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 an obscene management, humanly and politically," he said. he added.

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 a bitter failure, the filmmaker plays a role opposed to his civic commitment, that of an unscrupulous and indebted father, a source of disappointment for his children, especially his daughter, portrayed onscreen by the star's own daughter, Dylan Penn.

The filmmaker confided 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 was generous enough to read it quickly and remind me. Not to tell me that he could do it, nor that he could not do it but to tell me that I was a moron not to do it myself and to take this opportunity to play with my daughter, "he said.

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