On 63 years old died after illness the universally recognized French director Laurent Cante.
His works dealt with some of the the most complex problems of contemporary French society, incl the meritocracy, education system, the diversity and the class struggle.
Kante it was best known outside of France with your movie Entre les Murs (“Into the Classroom”)which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. It describes life in a middle school classroom in the diverse 20th arrondissement of Paris and the relationship between students, played by teenage non-professional actors, and their sometimes exasperated teacher.
Based on an autobiographical novel for idealistic young teacher, which confronts a troubled class of underprivileged children, Kante cast the book’s author in the title role. It became one of the few Palme d’Or-winning films to sell more than 1 million tickets at the French box office in the last two decades.
“Serious, subtle, edgy, disturbing, funny and poignant”, wrote Le Monde about the film, which won its prize at Cannes by unanimous decision of the jury headed by the American actor Sean Penn. “In the Classroom” understood the subtle intellectual confrontations and conversations that take place behind the closed classroom door: failures and frustrations not only between teachers and students, but also between the strict education system and the unequal view of modern society for young people.
The movie was praised from the then president Nicolas Sarkozywho stated that the production depicts the difficulty of the French education system as well as the valiant efforts of the teachers.
But Kante, who was described by Libération critic Didier Peron as a director of social films in the vein of Ken Loach, told Le Croix that he declined an invitation to meet Sarkozy at the Elysees after the film’s release. “I didn’t want to go and be photographed with Sarkozy and I didn’t want to talk about diversity with someone who invented the Ministry of National Identity,” he said.
Kante was hailed by French critics for bringing a form of generosity and humanism to the subjects he tackled. They range from the brutal systems of management and status in the world of work shown in his film Human Resources to sex tourism in Haiti in the 1970s in the South
The Cannes Film Festival described him as “a fierce humanist who seeks light despite social violence and finds hope despite the harshness of reality.”
His other films include Time Out, inspired by the true story of a man who kills his parents, wife and children after pretending to be a successful doctor for two decades. It won two awards at the 2001 Venice Film Festival.
Kante returned to Cannes in 2017 with The Workshop, about a group of troubled young people attending a writing workshop near the southern city of Marseille. His latest work, Arthur Rimbaud, which premiered in 2021, explores how a reputation can be destroyed on social media.
Kante was working on a new film, The Apprentice, due out the following year.
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