Spike Lee Directs, “Wake Up,” a Five-Minute Campaign Film for Bernie Sanders

Ear­li­er this month Spike Lee and Bernie Sanders, two Brook­lyn natives, sat down and talked about pol­i­tics and the state of our nation. Now, with the New York pri­ma­ry right around the cor­ner, Spike drew on his film­mak­ing tal­ents and direct­ed a five-minute polit­i­cal cam­paign film for Bernie. It’s called sim­ply “Wake Up,” and it fea­tures cameos by Dr. Cor­nel West, Susan Saran­don, and Har­ry Bela­fonte.

I can’t recall anoth­er instance where a major film­mak­er shot an ad for a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. If we’re over­look­ing some­thing obvi­ous (or less obvi­ous), let us know in the com­ments and we’ll maybe fea­ture it dur­ing this cam­paign sea­son.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Spike Lee Inter­views Bernie Sanders: Two Guys from Brook­lyn Talk About Edu­ca­tion, Inequal­i­ty & More

Bernie Sanders: I Will Be an Arts Pres­i­dent

Spike Lee’s List of 95 Essen­tial Movies – Now with Women Film­mak­ers

Bernie Sanders Sings “This Land is Your Land” on the Endear­ing­ly Bad Spo­ken Word Album, We Shall Over­come

Allen Ginsberg’s Hand­writ­ten Poem For Bernie Sanders, “Burling­ton Snow” (1986)