Director Ladj Ly to pay 50,000 euro fine for breach of trust

Investigations have revealed “the sloppy financial management” of the association La Cité des arts visuels and the production company Lyly Films, headed by Amadou Ly, Ladj Ly’s brother.

French filmmaker Ladj Ly, multi-award winner for Wretchedwill have to pay a fine of 50,000 euros for breach of trust in the management of his production company and an association, AFP learned on Friday July 19 from the Bobigny prosecutor’s office.

The 44-year-old filmmaker was granted an alternative to prosecution on June 28 by admitting his guilt and thus avoiding a criminal trial. “Investigations have highlighted sloppy financial management” of the association La Cité des arts visuels and the production company Lyly Films, specified the Bobigny prosecutor’s office, confirming information from Mediapart. The association benefits from public subsidies and private partnerships.

Ladj Ly’s brother, Amadou, who was the president of these two entities, was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison sentence, a 100,000 euro suspended fine and a five-year ban on exercising a commercial or industrial profession, during an appearance on prior admission of guilt (CRPC).

The investigation focused in particular on the purchase of a house in Montfermeil, in Seine-Saint-Denis, and the work that followed, thanks to the association’s money, even though the Ly brothers were the owners on paper, a source close to the investigation indicated. However, there was no real desire for personal enrichment, according to this source, citing various expenses paid by the association without justification or that they were the only beneficiaries.

Of the approximately 300,000 euros that appear to have been fraudulently used, the Ly brothers fully repaid the funds between December 2020 and February 2022, the Bobigny prosecutor’s office said. The filmmaker and his brother had been taken into custody in February 2021 as part of the investigation, opened a year earlier. They were released. A search was also carried out at the association’s premises in Montfermeil, a poor town in the Paris suburbs where the filmmaker grew up and set up his film school.

A member of the artistic collective Kourtrajmé (“short film” in verlan), Ladj Ly rose to international fame in 2019 with his hard-hitting film The miserables which notably won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 and four Césars including that of best film. Praised by critics, this dark picture of the suburbs has toured the planet and aroused enthusiasm in the 7th art world for the director’s work.

The Kourtrajmé school offers free training with no age or degree requirements in cinema or the art of image. It already has a number of prestigious collaborators and partners, from actress Ludivine Sagnier to the American platform Netflix. In its wake, two other establishments were inaugurated in Marseille in 2020 and Dakar in 2021.