Speaking at the Berlin film festival , the Chi-Raq director said he fears what the Republican frontrunner would do if he had access to the ‘nuclear football’

Spike Lee will vote for Bernie Sanders in the upcoming US presidential election – partly, he says, because he fears what Republican frontrunner Donald Trump would do if he had access to the “nuclear football”.

When asked who he would be voting for in November’s election, the director, speaking at the Berlin film festival press conference for his new film, Chi-Raq, recalled a fundraiser he once threw for Bill Clinton. Accompanying the president at the time was an aide with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Lee believed that this was the “nuclear football”, which allows the US president to authorise a nuclear attack while away from the White House.

“I always thought it was a myth. It scared the shit out of me,” Lee said. “Can you imagine Donald Trump having that power? Press some numbers into that and we’re all out of here. You’re fired … for real!”

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Teyonah Parris and John Cusack in Chi-Raq. Photograph: Parrish Lewis/Handout/EPA

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Chi-Raq, named after the colloquial term used by Chicago rappers to emphasise the city’s murder rate, is a satirical part-musical based on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. In it Teyonah Parris plays Lysistrata, the girlfriend of a gang member who organises a sex strike to encourage women from opposite sides of the conflict to abstain from sex until their partners stop using guns.

Since 2010 more US citizens have died from gun violence in Chicago than in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. One of the film’s stars, John Cusack, opened the press conference by citing the statistics of the number people shot and killed in the city this year so far. The tally stands at 73 to date.

Cusack’s co-star, actor and musician Nick Cannon, plays gang leader Demetrius “Chi-Raq” Dupree. He said that the city’s youth had lost sight of the reality of taking a life.

“When they shoot someone it’s called scoring,” he said. “It’s like a video game. The value of life is not what it used to be”.

Asked about his decision not to attend this year’s Oscars over the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, Lee, who was given an honorary Academy Award last November, said he was encouraged by the effect that the criticism of stars such as Will and Jada Pinkett Smith had had on the Academy’s decision to change their membership regulations in an effort to introduce more diversity to their voting body.

“If the issue had not been raised, I believe the Academy would not have made these changes,” Lee said. “It wouldn’t have happened if people stayed quiet.”

Cusack said the whole system of awards in the US had become too pervasive.

“It used to be that artists made films and occasionally got awards,” he said. “Now it feels like we make films for two months and give each other awards for 10 months. I don’t think grown-ups should take awards that seriously”.