World cinema has lost one of the most attentive directors in terms of civil commitment, on and off set. Laurent Cantet, who passed away today in Paris due to illness at the age of 63, he was not only the first French director to bring the Cannes Palme d’Or back home in 2008, 21 years after Maurice Pialat; he was not only a point of reference for an entire generation of filmmakers and one of the youngest authors to win the César Award for first work in 1999; he was above all a man and a director of convinced social commitment. As he is remembered with condolences Cannes Film Festival which defines him as “a relentless humanist, who sought the light despite social violence, who found hope despite the harshness of reality. His coherent and humanist work is the stuff of sensitive, profound and socially conscious cinema.”
The general public remembers him for the film The class which surprisingly triumphed at Cannes in 2008. A truthful film like so much of his production, taken from the school diary of Professor François Bégaudeau. Conceived as a fictional documentary, starring the book’s author and a real middle class school group, it is a portrait full of empathy and passion towards the world of youth with all its fears and hopes. A film that anticipated today’s tensions, and which showed how complex the roles of the teacher and the student are today. Ultimately a tribute to his teacher parents, who gave birth to him in Melle, New Aquitaine, on 11 April 1961.
After university in Marseille he entered the IDHEC in Paris where he graduated in 1986. Among his classmates were Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand and Robin Campillo who will be at his side in many moments of his career and for whom he will produce in 2017 120 beats per minute in turn awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes. Cantet then becomes Marcel Ophuls’ assistant director for Veillées d’armes on the siege of Sarajevo in 1994. Meanwhile he made his debut as a director with the documentary A summer in Beiruth (1990) and the short film Tous à la manif (1994). His first attempt in a feature film dates back to 1997 with Les sanguinaires produced for TV. When he arrives in the theater with his first work Human resources in 1999 (winner of two Cèsar Awards) is already a mature and aware filmmaker: he knows he wants to dedicate his work to the reality of ordinary people, to those who struggle to make it to the end of the month, to social issues. The next ones The employee du temps And Towards the south (made in the early 2000s) make the rounds of major festivals and place him at the head of a new movement in French cinema, finally capable of breaking away from the models of the Nouvelle Vague.
Four years after the success of The class (30 million euros in grosses worldwide) returns to Cannes with the collective film 7 days in Havana which will win in the “Un Certain Regard” section and then dedicates the dazzling Return to Ithaca. His career ended in 2017 with The atelier And Arthur Rambo of 2021 on the new generation of North African French. When he disappears, Laurent Cantet is still working on a new projectThe Apprenticei, which was supposed to be released in 2025.
Always committed to the defense of authors and social minorities, in 2010 he fought alongside the “sans papier” for the protection of immigrants and entertainment workers; in 2017 he founded the first digital platform (La Cineteck) for the protection of French film heritage, he supported the cause of the 50/50 collective for gender equality, last December he signed, together with 50 colleagues, the open letter requesting a “ceasefire” in Gaza and for the defense of Palestinian civilians and the return of Israeli hostages.
