Spike Lee doc returns to New Orleans

Spike Lee began his documentary on the five-year followup to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans thinking it would be a portrait of a city still struggling, but making progress.

If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise begins on Super Bowl Sunday 2010, with the New Orleans Saints claiming victory over the Indianapolis Colts and Saints fans deliriously happy.

But less than four months later, the city was reeling from another disaster — the BP oil spill.

The documentary Lee thought he had made, about neighbourhoods not yet rebuilt, former residents displaced and recovery efforts stymied by government bureaucracy, had to be scrapped.

"The story was changing every day," Lee said in New Orleans, after a screening of the documentary for residents. "We had to keep adapting, to stay on top of it as best as possible."

Lee found himself adding a new layer of sorrow — with fishermen losing their livelihoods, and New Orleans officials and laymen alike questioning who was protecting their interests.

"What has been puzzling people, and I include myself, is how much BP has had control of the situation," he said.

Neither George Bush, who was U.S. president as the Katrina recovery was botched, nor Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, would agree to an interview.

But Lee did talk to much criticized FEMA director Michael Brown, who is surprisingly frank about FEMA's failures.

'Very, very emotional'

Lee probes the bad management behind both environmental disasters and in his usual style, points fingers at those responsible.

"Oil and gas industries make more money than any other business on this planet and they pay off people, they pay off politicians. BP were running things," he said.

The film got an emotional reception at a screening Tuesday at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre in New Orleans.

"The first hour was very, very emotional," said Sharon Starks, 53. "But the second hour, I was just angry. It was about the BP oil spill, and I just felt they came along and violated us on top of everything else."

Lee made If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise as a five-year followup to his Emmy-winning documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.

The documentary will air Monday and Tuesday on HBO in the U.S.