Director Laurent Cantet, Palme d’Or in 2008 for “Entre les Murs”, has died at the age of 63

The filmmaker died Thursday following an illness, his agent announced.

He received the Palme d’Or in 2008. Director Laurent Cantet died at the age of 63 following an illness, his agent announced to AFP on Thursday April 25, confirming information from Release. He was working on a film project, titled The Apprenticewhich was due to be released in 2025.

Immersion in a factory in “Human Resources”

Born in April 1961, the son of teachers, Laurent Cantet studied cinema at the prestigious Idhec school, which he attended at the same time as other future directors, such as Dominik Moll. His first feature film, Human ressources, accomplished in 1999, will be a milestone: the camera inserts itself into the daily functioning of a factory, the social relations of which it deciphers through a father/son relationship. The film which marks the debut of Jalil Lespert obtains a César for best young hopeful for the actor and a César for best first work.

After two other feature films, The timetable And To the souththe young filmmaker knows consecration with Between the wallsscreen adaptation of the novel by François Bégaudeau, story of the daily life of a French teacher in a difficult college located in a ZEP.

The writer himself plays the role of the teacher who tries the impossible to motivate his classes. The film was awarded a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and will leave its mark.

“Arthur Rambo” based on the Mehdi Meklat affair

Four years after his first big success, Laurent Cantet comes out Confessions of a Girl Gang, a film adaptation of the novel by Joyce Carol Oates. This drama tells the story of five young girls who, in 1955, form a gang to be able to fight against machismo and the control of men over women.

In 2014, he signed another dramatic comedy, Return to Ithaca, on the Cuban dictatorship. Two years later, he co-wrote and directed The Workshop headlined by Marina Foïs. In 2021 he releases his last film Arthur Rambo which is inspired by the Mehdi Meklat affair, a writer who caused controversy following the discovery of a series of racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic tweets published under a pseudonym.