Director Bigelow hopes Trump is ‘humanised’ by watching Detroit

Movie director Kathryn Bigelow says she hopes US President Donald Trump will watch her new film Detroit, saying it might help to humanise him at a time when racial tension is roiling the nation.

Detroit is an unflinching look at events in the summer of 1967 riots in the US city, when tensions between black residents and a predominantly white police force erupted.

Reviewers have called the film powerful but painful to watch.

"The film is a kind of indictment against the pervasiveness of racism. And obviously we see that pervasiveness occurring yet again a few days ago in Charlottesville," Bigelow told reporters in London at the movie's British premiere.

Trump has inflamed tension after a deadly rally by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend by blaming both left- and right-wing extremists for violence, reigniting a firestorm over US race relations.

Bigelow said she "would encourage him [Trump] to see the movie only in the hope that it might humanise, perhaps something that is unimaginable for him."

"But my small platform is as a filmmaker and so I hope that I've sent a message to the world that we have to begin to talk about the inequity," she added.