Hollywood icon Robert De Niro lambasted ‘philistine’ US President Donald Trump and his proposed film tariff at the Cannes Film Festival's opening ceremony, where he used his lifetime achievement award speech to call for protests.
The 81-year-old actor shared the stage at the plush Grand Theatre Lumiere with fellow Oscar-winning superstars like Halle Berry, Juliette Binoche and Quentin Tarantino to accept the award from longtime collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio.
Trump "has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities and education. And now he has announced the 100 per cent tariff on films produced outside the US," said De Niro, known for films like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and more recently Killers of the Flower Moon.
"You can't put a price on creativity, but apparently, you can put a tariff on it," said De Niro, who called on "everyone who cares about liberty" to protest against Trump.
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Organisers stress that they want to avoid politics and focus on the films, but this year's inclusion of movies from Gaza, Ukraine and Iran, as well as Trump's tariff announcement shortly before the festival, has put more focus on the world outside Cannes.
Binoche, the head of this year's jury, used her speech to pay tribute to Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza and is the subject of a documentary to be shown at Cannes.
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