Struggle to make films continues: Filmmaker Spike Lee

Melbourne: Filmmaker Spike Lee says he still finds it tough to make movies and that is the reason why he chose to partner with streaming giant Netflix for his next feature.

The 62-year-old filmmaker, who recently won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his film "BlacKkKlansman", is currently working on "Da 5 Bloods" for Netflix, starring "Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman in the lead.

"It's still a struggle to get stuff made especially we are not doing marvel comic book though and I have said before everybody else turned down this my new film which is set on Netflix so the struggle continues," Lee said in a statement.

The film, which will also feature Giancarlo Esposito and Jean Reno, is about four African-American veterans who return to Vietnam to find their squad leader's remains.

The filmmaker believes today the word 'Diversity' is the "catch word around the world and is definitely needed."

"I don't think that it is any secret that every culture like their representation and representation done by themselves when people tell their stories. So I know that people of colour have caught held through history, so I don't think it is any different here in Australia, not the country but it is world-wide so we gotta move forward and I tell people, 'You want to be on the right side of the history, not the wrong side'."

Lee recently attended the Vivid Sydney 2019 where he spoke about racism, politics and films. The 11th edition of the festival began on May 24 and will go on till June 15.

The director also said it would be wrong for anyone to assume that the African-American people automatically likes his films since he belongs to the community.

"No one should assume because I am African-American that means my critics can't be African-American... People in Chicago they hated 'Chi-Raq', the black folks in Chicago.

"So do not assume that all African-Americans like my work. I say many times that African-Americans, we are not one mind ethnic group, we don't think alike, look alike, whatever. So very early on I knew that criticism comes from everywhere and I have had good criticism over the years and you know bad criticism," Lee added.