Lee wins coveted cinema prize

Spike Lee has become only the third American in 41 years to be awarded the prestigious Fiesole Master of Cinema Award.

In receiving the award which recognises a director's body of work, Lee joins Orson Wells (1974) and Stanley Kubrick (1983) as the only US recipients of the prize.

The two-time Oscar nominee is in Tuscany for pre-production work on his latest project Miracle at St. Anna, a $45 million (£22.5 million) World War II drama set in Italy.

At a press conference on Monday, Lee was outspoken on a number of issues including Hollywood's portrayal of black characters, Washington's foreign policy and the film industry in general which, the director said, had excluded him.

Lee said: "My last feature film, Inside Man, was my most successful so far, and I was naive enough to think that that meant I could go from there and make any film I wanted to make.

"But I was very, very wrong about that. Anybody who thinks that I've become part of the mainstream doesn't understand the way it works."

Lee sparked laughter several times by saying he would only win an Oscar when he was so old he would have to be pushed onstage in a wheelchair.

He also threatened to fine two photographers whose mobiles rang during the hour-long briefing.

"On my set, the rule is that if your phone goes off while we're shooting, that's $50 (£25) in my pocket," he said.

Lee said Miracle - which will be his first film shot mostly outside of the US - would be the first WWII film to feature a largely black cast.

"I'm a big fan of World War II movies, but up until now I've only seen two that featured any black soldiers," Lee said. "There was Jim Brown in Dirty Dozen and (James Edwards), who was General Patton's valet in Patton. I know we can do better than that."

Commenting on Washington, Lee said there had been no war since WWII in which the US had been involved that he would consider a "just" war.

© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.