French filmmaker Laurent Cantet, famous for having directed the powerful “Entre les Murs”, Palme d’Or winner in 2008, died this Thursday at the age of 63.
Notably famous for winning the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for his gripping school-centered drama Between the Walls, French director Laurent Cantet passed away this Thursday, April 25 at the age of 63.
A career start in the 80s
Son of teachers, Laurent Cantet obtained a master’s degree in audiovisual in Marseille, then joined IDHEC in 1984, where he became friends with future filmmakers like Dominik Moll, Vincent Dietschy and Gilles Marchand. The latter hired him as cinematographer on his first short film, L’Etendu (1987), then renewed the collaboration in 1993 for another short film entitled Merry Christmas.
Graduating from the prestigious school in 1986 with a graduation film entitled “Chercheurs d’or”, Laurent Cantet signed a documentary for television on the Lebanese war (“A Summer in Beirut”, 1990), before working as assistant director on Veillées d’armes (1994) by Marcel Ophuls. He soon gained attention thanks to two short films in which he immediately dealt with two of his favorite themes: class struggle in Tous à la manif (Prix Jean-Vigo 1995) and family ties in Jeux de plage (1995). , the short film which marks the screen debut of Jalil Lespert.
First committed films
After having directed Les Sanguinaires in 1999 for Arte as part of the “2000 seen by…” collection, Laurent Cantet shot, again with the support of the Franco-German channel, his first feature film: Human Resources (1999). ). Examining, with equal subtlety, social relations in a factory and a father/son relationship. The film combines the strength of documentary with that of melodrama, a feat hailed by two Césars: Best Debut Work and Best Young Actor for Jalil Lespert, the only professional actor in the middle of a cast of amateurs. In 2010, director Courtney Hunt made an American remake of this film (Human Resources), produced by Alain Chabat.
Faithful to the same subjects, Cantet addresses the question of work in his second feature film L’Emploi du temps. Awarded at Venice in 2001, the film is inspired by the story of mythomaniac Jean-Claude Romand. With Vers le sud, his third opus, also presented at the Mostra, the filmmaker confronts a distant land (Haiti) and a renowned actress (Charlotte Rampling). In his own words, the film “compares the social misery of some with the sexual misery of others”, a new way for him to articulate the intimate and the political.
Top and Short
The Palme d’Or in 2008
Cantet then embarked on the screen adaptation of François Bégaudeau’s novel “Entre les Murs”, in which the author evokes his daily life as a French teacher in a difficult college. From this documentary material, the filmmaker creates a nuanced and stimulating fiction about the school environment, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival – a first since Under Satan’s Sun (1987).
In 2012, he returned to the Croisette, collaborating with seven directors of different nationalities to direct the 7-day segment “La Fuente” in Havana, presented in the Official Selection at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. The director marked the beginning of the following year with the feminist Foxfire, based on “Confessions of a Girl Gang” by American novelist Joyce Carol Oates.
In 2014, Laurent Cantet returned to Havana to make Return to Ithaca. The film tells the story of the reunion of five friends on the occasion of the return of one of them. In 2017, the director presented his new film at Cannes, L’Atelier, again from his collaboration with Robin Campillo and in which Marina Foïs slips into the shoes of a recognized novelist supervising young people through a training workshop. writing.
Four years later, in 2021, he released his latest feature film: the drama Arthur Rambo in which a successful young writer finds himself in turmoil when old messages posted on his social networks resurface.
When he died on April 25, 2024 at the age of 63, the French filmmaker was working on another feature film project entitled The Apprentice, the future of which we do not yet know.