While some reporters, newspaper editors and some readers/viewers are complaining of what’s being called “Katrina fatigue,” filmmaker Spike Lee says he’s ready to do a follow up film to his critically acclaimed HBO documentary on Hurricane Katrina, “When The Levees Broke.”

Lee told the American Society of Newspaper Editors he wants to focus more of his new documentary on the Gulf Coast region outside of New Orleans mostly in Mississippi. “Next month, we’re going back to HBO and discuss how we can continue this,” Lee said. “The Gulf Coast will be a much bigger part, We didn’t forget about you.”

During the closing luncheon, Lee introduced three New Orleans residents who were featured in his award-winning Katrina documentary. The Katrina victims – Fred J. Johnson, Phyliss Montana LeBlanc and Gralen B. Banks – who told the editors that the story isn’t over.

LeBlanc told of the toll stress was taking, as she held up a collection of medications she said she had been prescribed — not that she was taking them all, she said. She told of two women who died in succession in the same family. When the second one died, the family had run out of money, and LeBlanc said she appealed to Lee for funds to bury her. Lee responded by overnight mail.

Banks, who like LeBlanc is still living in a FEMA trailer 19 months after the disaster struck, alluded to an early news-media controversy: What to call the victims. "Refugees," he said, are people without a country. "Let the world know that this is still America and it shouldn't be happening to us. This is not right," said Banks, who headed security at the Hyatt Hotel in the city. "You called us refugees," he said, and "you separated us."

The stories prompted Lee to say, “Forget about Katrina fatigue… Five or 10 years from now, are you going to remember that 'I covered "American Idol,"' or what you're covering here?"

Next week in New York City, Lee will be presented with the George K. Polk Award for “When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.” The film “celebrated and mourned New Orleans, presenting personal accounts of those directly affected by Hurricane Katrina and evidence of gross governmental neglect and ineptitude surrounding one of the worst natural disasters this country has ever faced.

Published in : Entertainment, Movies