Spike Lee releases new short as part of George Floyd protests

Veteran director Spike Lee has released a short film as part of the protests over the death of George Floyd, the African-American man who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis. The short, "3 Brothers  Radio Raheem, Eric Garner And George Floyd", juxtaposes Floyd's treatment at the hands of the police with that of the footage of deaths of Eric Gardener and Radio Raheem, the character in Lee's 1989 film "Do The Right Thing".

The film opens with the question, "Will History Stop Repeating Itself?" and premiered during the Oscar winner's appearance on CNN's special "I Can't Breathe: Black Men Living and Dying In America". Floyd died last Monday in Minneapolis, Minnesota after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for more than eight minutes. The officer was arrested on Friday and charged with third-degree murder. 

Garner died in 2014 after being arrested in Staten Island, New York, and the officer involved was not charged. In the scenes from "Do the Right Thing" in the 1 minute 34 seconds-long video, Raheem (played by Bill Nunn) dies during a brawl after the police officers used batons to choke him.

All three black men died in similar circumstances after being restrained by a white police officer/s on the street. In the interview with anchor Don Lemon, Lee appeared in a shirt embossed with '1916', the year synonymous with the beginning of slavery in the US.

"This is history again, and again and again... The attack on black bodies has been here from the get-go," he said. The filmmaker also addressed the tense protests in the wake of Floyd's death. "I am not condoning all this other stuff but I understand why people are doing what they are doing," he added. 

Several Hollywood personalities like Rihanna, Chrissy Teigen, Timothee Chalamet, Halsey, Beyonce, Dwayne Johnson, Billie Ellish, John Cusack, Nick Cannon, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Daniel Dae Kim demanded justice for Floyd and also participated in protests across the country.