French filmmaker Laurent Cantet died this Thursday, April 25, 2024 from an illness.
The filmmaker Laurent Cantet, who received the Palme d’Or in 2008 for his film Between the wallsdied Thursday, his agent announced to AFP, confirming information from Release.
“He died this morning in Paris of illness,” said Isabelle de la Patellière. The director was working on a film project, titled The apprenticewhich was due to be released in 2025.
A “fierce humanist”
A discreet director with an assumed social fiber, Laurent Cantet entered the Cannes legend in 2008 by receiving the Palme d’Or for Between the wallsa distinction awarded by the jury chaired by Sean Penn.
Half-documentary, half-fiction, this film with a budget of 2.4 million euros features a French teacher, François Bégaudeau (author of the eponymous novel on which it is inspired), and students aged 13 to 15 years old, with multiple geographical and social origins, in a Parisian college.
The Cannes Film Festival immediately reacted on Thursday, saluting the memory of a “fierce humanist, who sought light despite social violence, who found hope despite the harshness of reality.” He was also a filmmaker and screenwriter “whose coherent and humanist work draws a sensitive cinema, on the skin and on the surface of society”, adds the festival.
Before Between the wallsCantet stood out with Human ressources (1999), a film about the corporate world, and The timetable (2001), inspired by the Jean-Claude Romand affair. He returned to Cannes in 2017 with The Workshop, in which a group of young people in integration carry out a writing internship. His latest film, Arthur Rambo, released in 2021, looked at the destruction of a reputation on social media.
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With AFP
