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Before his breakout success on Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul came close to starring in a sitcom that many other rising actors were trying hard to land at the time. Looking back, Paul can still remember how depressed he felt at the time, as he didn't know about the opportunity that would be waiting for him around the corner.

Paul spoke about his career during an appearance on the latest episode of the YouTube interview series Hot Ones. He recalled auditioning for The Class, a CBS sitcom that served as a follow-up to Friends for co-creator David Crane. Despite Paul's best efforts, he did not secure a role on the show. He couldn't have foreseen that the show would be short-lived, while the rejection would open the door for him to find his career-making role. Though better days were on the horizon, however, Paul still felt very depressed when he didn't book The Class.

There cannot help but be a tinge of sadness around a film that started shooting with director Laurent Cantet (whose The Class won the Palme d’Or in 2008) and, after he succumbed to cancer, was finished by his friend Robin Campillo (120 Bpm (Beats per Minute), also a Cannes award-winner in 2017).

Chosen for the opening night slot in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, it’s an affecting coming-of-age tale about a teenager trying to find his own identity within a claustrophobic family unit and set against the seductive backdrop of the Côte d’Azur. Instead of conforming to the expectations of his bourgeois parents who would prefer a more traditional future for their off-spring, the 16-year-old Enzo (newcomer Eloy Pohu) decides to start a masonry apprenticeship.

This leads to fierce tensions between him and his parents (Élodie Bouchez and Pierfrancesco Favino) as well as his academically inclined older brother (Nathan Japy)...

Even after winning an Oscar, a Palme d’Or and six Cesar awards with Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” French producer Marie-Ange Luciani isn’t resting on her laurels. The Paris-based producer, who runs the company Les Films de Pierre, still strives to work with emerging filmmakers and newcomers, such as Laura Wandel, whose second feature, “Adam’s Sake,” opened this year’s Cannes Critics Week to warm reviews. She’s also cultivated relationships with established auteurs, such as Robin Campillo, who won Cannes’ 2017 Jury Prize with “Bpm (Beats Per Minute)” and opened Directors’ Fortnight this year with “Enzo,” which he finished after his close friend Laurent Cantet, the helmer of the Palme d’Or winning “The Class,” died before he could finish the drama.

Aside from developing Triet’s follow up to “Anatomy of a Fall,” Luciani is looking ahead at a busy 2026.

She’ll next work...

The queer coming-of-age experience is one of great vulnerability: a young person must grapple with the realization they’re becoming different from both past selves and those around them. Robin Campillo’s Enzo, which opened the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at Cannes, understands the delicacy of such subject matter and paints a fittingly subtle, light-handed portrait of its title character. If anything, it suffers from being a bit too lightweight and gives a somewhat unfocused impression initially, until a beautiful third act reveals the mystery and pain of a boy seeking his place in the world.

Enzo is 16. We meet him at a countryside construction site where he mixes concrete and lays bricks under the relentless sun. The work is hard and he seems neither good at it nor motivated to get better. When his boss takes him home to complain about the subpar performance to his parents, we find out Enzo actually comes from money.

Cannes – Celebrated filmmaker Laurent Cantet passed away from cancer a little over a year ago. He’d won the Palme d’Or in 2008 for “The Class,” and his final directorial effort was intended to be “Enzo,” a portrait of a young man from a wealthy family attempting to find himself. As fate would have it, Cantet never had the chance to direct the film, but his peer and friend Robin Campillo, best known for 2017’s “Bpm,” made sure his vision came to life.

Continue reading ‘Enzo’ Review: A Young Man Struggles To Find Himself In Laurent Cantet’s Final Film [Cannes] at The Playlist.

On the surface, the titular hero of Robin Campillo and Laurent Cantet’s Enzo seems like your fairly average teenager. Handsome, athletic, relatively friendly, but also introverted, stubborn and a bit volatile, he’s the kind of kid who likes to keep to himself but is constantly yearning for connection, especially outside the family unit.

Perhaps Enzo (promising newcomer Eloy Pohu) is a tad too average, which may explain why this subtle French drama seems to meander more than it really does. Beneath the surface, there are, in fact, some major conflicts brewing in Enzo’s life: He’s been waging a quiet war against his bourgeois parents (Pierfrancesco Favino, Elodie Bouchez), rejecting the typical academic route that his older brother (Nathan Japy) has successfully chosen. And he’s also rejecting the heterosexuality that has been foisted upon him, falling gradually in love with an older Ukrainian bricklayer named Vlad...

When a filmmaker takes over directing duties after a movie’s original helmer has passed away, many viewers will be inclined to wonder what could have been if that particular lost voice had stayed involved to the finish line. Having directed only one scene of “Battle Royale II: Requiem,” Kinji Fukasaku was hospitalized due to complications from prostate cancer, dying a few weeks later; his son Kenta Fukasaku, a screenwriter on both “Battle Royale” films, completed the sequel as his directorial debut. Elsewhere, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” is likely the most famous example of this. Stanley Kubrick reportedly tried handing off his long-gestating sci-fi feature to Steven Spielberg several years before his death, though Spielberg apparently convinced Kubrick to remain as director.

Both “A.I.” and “Battle Royale II” were dedicated to the men who were once set to bring them to fruition. With “Enzo”, the latest feature directed by Robin Campillo,...

Buyers are finally wise to the fact that Cannes is driving the Oscar race and even the specialized box office. Everyone wants to find the next “Anora,” “The Substance,” “Emilia Perez,” or “Anatomy of a Fall.” And more buyers like Mubi, Metrograph, Sideshow, and other upstarts have emerged to take on the likes of Neon and A24, who come to Cannes armed with several titles already set to debut.

Below, we’ve identified 13 movies looking for homes that could be the next awards breakout, including new films from Lynne Ramsay and Richard Linklater and the debuts of Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson.

All titles presented alphabetically.

“The Chronology of Water” (Un Certain Regard)

Director: Kristen Stewart

Stars: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Tom Sturridge

Buzz: Even if it’s in a sidebar for a first-time director, Kristen Stewart’s debut should be a hot ticket with a lot of...

Laurent Cantet, the beloved French filmmaker who directed 2008 Cannes Palme d’Or winner “The Class,” died in April 2024 of cancer before he could see what would have been his last movie to completion.

That film, “Enzo,” is now directed by his friend of 40-plus years, Robin Campillo, the French director best known for his 2017 Cannes Grand Prize winner “Bpm,” one of the most poignant movies ever made about the HIV/AIDS crisis (and about queer identity in general). It’s a summery coming-of-age affair that you might mistake on its surface for something like “Call Me by Your Name,” but this Cannes Directors’ Fortnight premiere is more about the title character’s inner, class-inflicted conflicts and torments.

The 16-year-old Enzo (discovery Eloy Pohu) defies his moneyed bourgeois family’s expectations and lifestyle — they’re living in a summer villa shut out entirely from the outside world in the South of France,...

We will update this article throughout the season, along with all our predictions, so make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2025 Emmys race. The nomination round of voting takes place from June 12 to June 23, with the official Emmy nominations announced Tuesday, July 15. Afterwards, final voting commences on August 18 and ends the night of August 27. The 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards are set to take place on Sunday, September 14, and air live on CBS at 8:00 p.m. Et/ 5:00 p.m. Pt.

The State of the Race

Although there wasn’t a blockbuster Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series contender this TV season like “The Last Dance,” “The Beatles: Get Back,” or “Beckham,” the series that are presently vying for the Emmy are mostly very strong.

For example, “100 Foot Wave” on HBO has been nominated twice already, and is surely hoping that the third season is the charm.

Directors’ Fortnight, the independent selection running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, has added Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s “Yes” to its 2025 lineup.

“Y., a jazz musician struggling to make ends meet, and his wife Jasmine, a dancer, sell their art, souls and bodies to the elite, and bring pleasure and consolation to a bleeding nation. Soon, Y. is given a mission of the highest importance: setting to music a new national anthem,” reads the synopsis provided by Directors’ Fortnight.

The cast includes Ariel Bronz, Efrat Dor, Naama Preis and Alexey Serebryakov.

The film is a France-Israel-Cyprus-Germany co-production. Producers are Les Films du Bal (Judith Lou Lévy) et Chi-Fou-Mi Productions (Hugo Sélignac & Antoine Lafon) and co-producers include Bustan Films (Thomas Alfandari – Israeel), Amp Filmworks, Komplizen Film GmbH and Arte France Cinéma with the participation of Zdf/Arte. French distribution and global sales are being handled by

Les Films du Losange.

Lapid’s...

There’s a certain formula that often defines the recipients of the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious top prize, the Palme d’Or. These films, especially in the last two decades, tend to have a sense of importance about them, frequently due to their sociopolitical awareness of the world (Laurent Cantet’s The Class), or of specific societal ills.

From time to time, the Palme d’Or goes to a bold, experimental, and divisive vision from a well-liked auteur, such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. But more often it’s awarded to a film in the lineup that the majority of the members on the Cannes jury can agree is good. That felt like the case for Ken Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake, as well as Julia Ducournau’s Titane,...

The Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (May 14 – 24) has unveiled its 2025 lineup. The 57th edition of the Cannes Film Festival sidebar again showcases director-driven works from emerging and established filmmakers, this year opening for the second time in a row with a posthumous movie: “Enzo,” directed by French “Bpm” filmmaker Robin Campillo, who picks up the reins from late Palme d’Or-winning “The Class” director Laurent Cantet, who died in April. (Sophie Fillières’ final film “This Life of Mine” opened the event last year.) The Fortnight will close with Eva Victor’s Sundance sensation “Sorry, Baby,” which A24 acquired for release later in 2025 during the January festival.

The coming-of-age story “Enzo” follows an aspiring young mason worker in Marseille whose friendship with an older Ukrainian coworker offers him a renewed sense of life. “Sorry, Baby,” meanwhile, stars writer/director Victor as a college literature professor reeling from trauma.

Making his Cannes debut will...

Directors’ Fortnight, the independent selection running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, has unveiled an eclectic lineup for its 57th edition, which will showcase Christian Petzold’s “Miroirs No.3,” Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby,” Robin Campillo’s “Enzo” and Lloyd Lee Choi’s “Lucky Lu.”

Curated by Julien Rejl, Directors’ Fortnight will open with “Enzo,” a film directed by Robin Campillo (“Bpm Beats Per Minute).” Campillo stepped in at the helm after Laurent Cantet, his longtime friend and collaborator, died in April. Cantet and Campillo had previously collaborated on the script of the Palme d’Or-winning “The Class.”

Produced by Marie-Ange Luciani (“Anatomy of a Fall”) at Les Films de Pierre, “Enzo” is set in Marseille and follows the journey of a young apprentice mason, Enzo, who befriends a Ukrainian colleague who gives him a glimpse of a new horizon. The film stars newcomers Eloy Pohu and Maksym Slivinskyi, alongside Élodie Bouchez and Pierfrancesco Favino.

Lizzy Caplan is sharing details on what the scrapped Gambit movie would’ve been like.

In 2017, Deadline reported that Caplan was in talks to co-star alongside Channing Tatum in a standalone film based on X-Men’s Gambit. The film project was ultimately scrapped, but in a new interview, Caplan gave insight into the superhero movie.

“We got down the road, we were gonna shoot it,” Caplan told Business Insider. “I think there was a start date. I had had meetings with Channing, and there were a couple different… we had a director, then we didn’t, but I had multiple meetings with Channing and the other producers.”

Caplan added, “They wanted to do, like, a ’30s kind of screwball romantic comedy set in that world, which would have been really fun.”

Based on the comic book character Chris Claremont and Jim Lee created in 1990, Gambit made his first appearance in...

Memento Intl., the well-established Paris-based international sales company behind “Call Me by Your Name,” is rebranding as Paradise City Sales and is bringing “My Notes on Mars,” starring Greta Lee and Andrew Scott, to the EFM.

Emilie Georges, who founded Memento Intl. 20 years ago, launched the production vehicle Paradise City a few years ago with London-based Naima Abed. The pair have had great success with the pics they delivered, notably 2025 Sundance hit ”Atropia,” starring Alia Shawkat and Channing Tatum, and Anthony Chen’s 2023 drama ”Drift,” with Cynthia Erivo. “My Notes of Mars,” Hungarian director Lili Horvát’s English-language debut feature, is the latest co-production on Paradise City’s slate.

The rebranding comes at a pivotal time as Georges and Abed seek to build a closer bond between production and sales. As such, the sales outlet will now operate under the same Paradise City banner, which has offices in Paris and London,...

Paris-based production company Haut et Court and London-based Good Chaos have officially secured the film rights to ‘Paris-Hollywood,’ the debut novel by writer and critic Cécile Mury. The two companies plan to bring the novel to the big screen as a feature film, blending the romantic charm of both French and English-language romantic comedies.

The novel follows the love story between a French journalist and an English-speaking movie star, exploring themes of romance, cultural differences, and self-discovery. Given its unique take on love and relationships, the book has already gained significant attention in the literary world.

Mike Goodridge, CEO of Good Chaos, expressed his excitement about the adaptation, calling ‘Paris-Hollywood’ “a charming and winning read” that intelligently examines “the nature of love and the limits we put on ourselves before falling in love.” He added, “We are thrilled to collaborate with our friends at Haut et Court to create a classic European rom-com.

Paris-based Haut et Court and London-based Good Chaos have partnered to acquire the film rights to Paris-Hollywood, the debut novel from writer and critic Cécile Mury.

The novel is the story of a French journalist and an English-speaking movie star. The two companies have said they plan to adapt the novel into a feature film, with the aim of “blending the sensibilities of both Franco and Anglo rom-coms.”

“Paris-Hollywood is not only a charming and winning read, but it also digs intelligently into the nature of love and the limits we put on ourselves before falling in love,” Mike Goodridge, CEO of Good Chaos, said in a statement. “We are so excited to be building this movie with our dear friends at Haut et Court and make a classic European romcom.”

Paris-Hollywood was one of the buzzier titles at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, where it was picked up...

Paris-based Haut et Court and London-based Good Chaos, two of the founding members of the Fremantle-backed indie production collective The Creatives, have secured the film rights to Paris-Hollywood, the debut novel by French film critic Cécile Mury.

The novel, set for publication by Flammarion in April 2025, follows a romance between a French journalist and an English-speaking movie star. The novel was presented at last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, where translation rights were sold in six territories. Haut et Court and Good Chaos outmaneuvered several French and European producers to secure the film adaptation rights. The companies say the feature will be a rom-com that blends elements of both the French and English approaches to the genre.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have teamed up with Good Chaos to bring to the screen this delightful rom-com that plays so much on the genre but with a ‘je ne sais quoi et presque rien,...

Filming “Sukkwan Island,” a visceral psychological thriller premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, provided its French director Vladimir de Fontenay and everyone involved in the multi-national production with an epic yet transformative experience, mirroring that of the film’s protagonists.

Adapted from David Vann’s harrowing “Legend of a Suicide,” “Sukkwan Island” tells the story of 13 year-old, Roy, who agrees to spend a year of adventure with his estranged father, Tom, deep in the Norwegian fjords. Faced with the harsh realities of the relentless Arctic weather, the pair’s journey turns into a test of survival and brings out their inner turmoils.

De Fontenay’s follow-up to his 2017 feature debut “Mobile Homes,” “Sukkwan Island” was a passion project. He chased rights to the novel for years after his father gave him the book to read. The NYU grad was stunned when he was coincidentally contacted by Carole Scotta and Caroline Benjo,...

Jesse Tyler Ferguson became well-known for his Emmy-nominated performance as Mitchell Pritchett on Modern Family, and recently shared a touching memory of the late Matthew Perry in an episode of his Podcast Dinner's On Me. The podcast episode, which featured Friends star Lisa Kudrow, briefly touched on Perry, with Ferguson sharing an anecdote from the early days of his career. Highlighting Perry's inherent kindness and charm, Ferguson described an anxiety-filled moment on set before Perry helped to soothe his nerves.

Ferguson recalled his experience filming the sitcom The Class in 2006, in which the taping of the episode he was in that day was a more stressful environment than usual. The Modern Family actor described that Perry's visit to the set happened when Ferguson was struggling with the pressure of landing a joke almost perfectly, with the actor saying:

"Matthew Perry came to one of our tapings one night. He was in between scenes,...

Jesse Tyler Ferguson recalled Matthew Perry helped calm his nerves while shooting his first show with a “Friends” anecdote.

While talking with Lisa Kudrow on his “Dinner’s on Me” podcast, Ferguson looked back to days on the set of “The Class” – a one-season show and among the “Modern Family” alum’s first – and remembered a shoot that was saved for him by Perry showing up and sharing a behind-the-scenes joke from his days on “Friends.”

“I remember we were shooting ‘The Class’ on the same stage that you shot ‘Friends’ on at Warner Brothers,” Ferguson said. “David [Krane] was very comfortable there, Jimmy Burrows was very comfortable there. And Matthew Perry was next door shooting the behind-the-scenes drama ‘Studio 60’ and he was dating a cast member of mine on ‘The Class’ but Matthew was the first one of you I met and became friends with.”

He continued, “I think...

Bye Bye Tiberiasdirector Lina Soualem is among the filmmakers selected for theseventh edition of the expanded Atlas Workshops, the industry platform and talent incubatorfor Arab and African filmmakers of the 2024 Marrakech International Film Festival, for which US director Jeff Nichols will be this year’s mentor.

Soualem is taking part with her first fiction featureAlicante,along with filmmakers include French-Moroccan actor turned director Djanis Bouzyani with his documentaryAnd Still I Riseand Mouloud Ouyahia with the follow-up to his Cannes 2023 Directors’ Fortnight shortThe House is On Fire, Might as Well Get Warmwith his first featureThe Source.

Of the 17 projects in development,...

Thomas Vinterberg will chair the jury of the 21st Marrakech International Film Festival in Morocco, which runs from November 29 to December 7.

The jury will award its top prize the Étoile d’Or to one of the 14 first and second features in the festival’s international competition.

A leading light of European auteur cinema, Vinterberg broke out in 1998 when The Celebration (Festen) tied with The Class for the Cannes jury prize.

In 2021, he became the first Danish filmmaker to earn a best director Oscar nomination for Another Round, which won the best international feature award as well as corresponding honours from Bafta,...

Estonia’s Jevgeni Supin from Zolba Productions, credited for the first Estonian Viaplay original “Who Shot Otto Mueller,” has unveiled his slate of five high-end dramas, including “My Dear Mother” repped by Film.UA Group and “Von Fock,” due to world premiere at Tallinn TV Beats’ first Screening Day on Nov. 20.

Supin’s extensive slate and the caliber of his TV projects, all framed as international co-productions, reflect both his ambition to set Estonian -and Baltic- drama on the global map and his pioneering breakthroughs in co-production.

The four-part period crime “Von Fock”, for instance, was the first Estonian series ever to receive support from both Creative Europe’s Media Program and Eurimages’ pilot program for series co-productions in June. “This [EU public money] meant the world to me,” said Supin, who recently stepped down as head of TV Beats Forum to fully focus on producing. “It shows that we indie producers from the...

Ruthless season 5 part 1 ended in September 2024 and now fans are anxious about when the next installment of the drama series will air. Created by Tyler Perry of the Madea movie franchise, Ruthless is a spinoff of another Perry series, The Oval. Ruthless is a much more harrowing tale, following the cult known as the Rakudushi. In the beginning of the series, Ruth Truesdale (Melissa L. Williams), an ardent follower, kidnaps her own daughter for the Rakudushi. However, after suffering a ritual sexual assault, Ruth makes plans to leave the cult with anyone else she can convince.

The series first premiered in May 2020, and there have been four more seasons since. Each season of Ruthless is broken up into two parts, with some parts coming months after the first part. Season 5 part 1 premiered in August 2024 with eight episodes and now season 5 part 2 is expected to tie up all the loose strands of the show.

It's been15 years since Modern Family premiered, so a good time to focus on how old the cast of this hit ABC comedy was then and now!

Some may have forgotten that the first episode of Modern Family had a twist at the end. It appeared to be a documentary focusing on three different families in various levels of marriage. The final scene revealed they were one large extended family of the Pritchetts.

For 11 seasons and 250 episodes, viewers loved to see the family grow amid various escapades and misadventures, but the family bond was always there. It was a big ratings hit and won five Emmys for Outstanding Comedy series to boot.

The show signed off in 2020, but the cast has reassembled for some commercials, so here's a look at how old they are now!

Ed O'Neill as Jay Pritchett Modern Family - "Good Grief" - It's another epic Halloween full of costumes,...

Exclusive: Public television’s Kqed has announced it will present The Class, a documentary series executive produced by Daveed Diggs that explores high schoolers coming of age at the height of Covid.

The six-parter directed and produced by Adam Fenderson and Jaye Fenderson of Three Frame Media is set to air nationwide in the spring of 2025. It was filmed across the 2020-2021 school year in the California East Bay community of Antioch when kids were forced to contend with the immense disruption and social isolation of the pandemic.

“High school has always been a challenging time, but in the age of Covid it took an extra dose of courage and perseverance to succeed,” observed Diggs, the Tony- and Grammy-winning actor, producer and musician. “As an Oakland native and a fierce advocate for expanding opportunities in education, I am proud to be a part of The Class which...

Five top production designers will reveal secrets behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2024 Emmy Awards nominees. They will participate in two video discussions to premiere on Thursday, August 8, at 6:00 p.m. Pt; 9:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our contributor David Buchanan and a roundtable chat with all of the group together.

RSVP today to our entire ongoing contenders panel series by clicking here to book your free reservation. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.

Frasier

Synopsis: Frasier is off to a different city with new challenges to face, new relationships to forge, and an old dream or two to finally fulfill. Frasier has re-entered the building.

Bio: Glenda Rovello is a four-time Emmy winner for “Will and Grace” and “2 Broke Girls.” She was also nominated for “The Class,...

The 62nd edition of the New York Film Festival will kick off with RaMell Ross’s “Nickel Boys,” an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Nickel Boys.”

Film at Lincoln Center made the announcement early Monday and notably didn’t specify a premiere designation for the film, perhaps an indication that “Nickel Boys” will have its world premiere at another festival such as the Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, or Venice Film Festival.

“What an absolute honor for ‘Nickel Boys’ to open the 62nd New York Film Festival… a daydream really, for the crew, the cast, and team who’ve committed so wholeheartedly to its vision,” Ross said in a statement. The filmmaker’s debut documentary, “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” was previously screened at the 2018 edition of New Directors/New Films at New York City’s Lincoln Center. Ross called his debut feature...

French film director who won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes film festival with his improvisatory education drama The Class

The social-realist boom in 1990s French cinema produced compelling new voices such as Jacques Audiard, Bruno Dumont and Érick Zonca. The most humane and rigorous of that group was Laurent Cantet, who has died aged 63 after suffering from cancer.

Cantet, who often worked in an improvisatory mode with non-professional actors, won the Cannes film festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, for his education drama The Class. Sean Penn, president of that year’s Cannes jury, called the film “a miracle, a perfect movie, just so exciting to see. We walked into the jury room afterward and it was like we had swept up the floor and our work was done.”...

French director Laurent Cantet, whose films include Human Resources, Heading South, The Workshop and his Palme d’Or-winning The Class, died today at the age of 63. With this sad news we are reposting Brandon Harris’s interview with Cantet about The Class from our Spring, 2008 print edition. — Editor Starting with 1999’s Human Resources, Laurent Cantet has quickly built an international reputation as France’s most socially engaged narrative filmmaker, crafting films that highlight the ever lingering issues of race and class in both France and, as in the case of his 2006 film Heading South, its former colony of Haiti. With […]

The post “We Wanted To Show a Teacher with All His Weaknesses, Who Doesn’t Know Everything, Who Sometimes Makes Big Mistakes…”: Laurent Cantet on The Class first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

French director Laurent Cantet, whose films include Human Resources, Heading South, The Workshop and his Palme d’Or-winning The Class, died today at the age of 63. With this sad news we are reposting Brandon Harris’s interview with Cantet about The Class from our Spring, 2008 print edition. — Editor Starting with 1999’s Human Resources, Laurent Cantet has quickly built an international reputation as France’s most socially engaged narrative filmmaker, crafting films that highlight the ever lingering issues of race and class in both France and, as in the case of his 2006 film Heading South, its former colony of Haiti. With […]

The post “We Wanted To Show a Teacher with All His Weaknesses, Who Doesn’t Know Everything, Who Sometimes Makes Big Mistakes…”: Laurent Cantet on The Class first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Human Resources, Time Out and The Class, the Palme d’Or-winning film-maker – who has died aged 63 – addressed French and European society at all levels

Laurent Cantet was a classic product of the French cinema industry: a deeply intelligent, high-minded progressive film-maker of the same generation as Robin Campillo and Dominik Moll whose supremely literate, emotionally committed, stylish and well-acted movies aspired to address French and European society at all levels.

Cantet made films that you could imagine being discussed around a gregarious dinner table of fashionable Parisians, with glasses being avidly drained and refilled all round – in fact, you could imagine Cantet himself talking about his work at just this kind of gathering.

Laurent Cantet's Palme d'Or winner The Class Photo: UniFrance The French director Laurent Cantet who struck gold at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 with the Palme d’Or winner, The Class, has died at the age of 63.

Laurent Cantet Photo: Veeren Ramsamy for UniFrance The film was based on the novel Entre les murs which was a semi-autobiographical account of the author François Bégaudeau's own experiences in the school system in Paris - and featured him in the lead role of the teacher confronting “problem children.”

Beside the Palme d’Or the film also was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film.

Cantet was a filmmaker who showed a lively interest in social issues and themes, often used non professional actors and took a naturalistic approach to his subjects. His kindred spirits would be Ken Loach and the Dardenne Brothers as well as the traditions of Roberto Rossellini and Robert Bresson.

French filmmaker Laurent Cantet, whose 2008 film The Class won the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 2008, died on April 25 at the age of 63.

The acclaimed filmmaker was planning to shoot his next film Enzo, co-written by Robin Campillo and produced by Anatomy Of A Fall producer Marie-Ange Luciani, later this year.

Cantet’s agent Isabelle de la Patellière confirmed to French media the filmmaker “died this morning in Paris from an illness.”

The Class is a Paris documentary-drama based on a semi-autobiographical book by François Bégaudeau set in a French classroom about a teacher in a tough Parisian neighbourhood that starred a mostly unprofessional cast.

Laurent Cantet, the French director who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival in 2008 for his film “The Class,” has died. He was 63.

A spokesperson for Cantet’s agency, Ubba, confirmed to Variety that he died on Thursday morning of an illness.

“The Class” is based on the novel of the same name by François Bégaudeau and is a semi-autobiographical account of his experience as a teacher in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. Bégaudeau also starred in the film. “The Class” received a unanimous vote for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, making it the first French film to do so since 1987. The movie also earned an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film.

After studying at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques in Paris and working in television, Cantet released his first feature film, “Human Resources,” in 1999. It followed a management trainee as he starts a job at his father’s factory.

French director Laurent Cantet, who won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2008 for The Class, has died at the age of 63.

Based on the semi-autobiographical book by writer François Bégaudeau about his experiences working as a literature teacher in an inner city school in Paris, The Class featured a mainly unprofessional cast including the author.

Cantet had been due to shoot his next film Enzo, with Elodie Bouchez and Pierfrancesco Favino in the cast, this August

His second collaboration with Anatomy of a Fall producer Marie-Angle Luciani, after 2021 film Arthur Rambo, it revolved around a teenager who embarks on a mason apprenticeship in the South of France to escape a controlling father.

Cantet studied film at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (Idhec) in Paris in the mid-1980s, where his contemporaries were Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand and Robin Campillo.

They would continue to collaborate on one another’s projects throughout their careers,...

Matt LeBlanc is well known for his iconic role in Friends. But little would fans know that he was also offered to star in another renowned sitcom, Modern Family, which ran for about 11 seasons (2009-2020).

Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani

It would have been a great opportunity for the actor to relive his peak comedy phase once again, but he chose to turn it down. As for the reason, the actor believed that he was not the right one for the project.

Matt LeBlanc Was Offered to Play Phil Dunphy in Modern Family

Matt LeBlanc rose to prominence by playing the goofy role of Joey Tribbiani on Friends. The immense popularity of the main characters, especially Joey led to a spin-off, which failed to skyrocket like its predecessor, leading to its cancellation.

SUGGESTEDMatt LeBlanc and Courteney Cox Reveal Never Told Before Stories of Matthew Perry in Emotional Posts After His...

The cult director grew up on the luscious island of Madagascar just as it was casting off French rule. It was a deliriously happy time for him – but now he realises what was really going on

Robin Campillo’s new movie, Red Island, is an amazing, moving evocation of his own childhood in Madagascar as what the Anglo-Saxons call an “army brat”. His soldier dad was posted there with the family in the early days of the island’s independence from French imperial control – and the 10-year-old roamed free in this lush and gorgeous place, but all the time aware of sexual licence among the grownups, their wan melancholy at their imminent expulsion from this paradise and the increasingly pointed anti-colonial rumblings among the Indigenous people. The boy is almost like young Jim in Jg Ballard’s Empire of the Sun (played by Christian Bale in Spielberg’s film version...

Anatomy of a Fall French producer Marie-Ange Luciani put in a flying appearance at the Berlinale this week with Claire Burger’s coming-of-age drama Langue Étrangère which received a warm reception in competition.

With the Berlin premiere taking place the day after the Baftas in London (where Anatomy of a Fall won Best Screenplay) and eight days before the January 27 voting deadline for this year’s Academy Awards, Luciani was also in the thick of the awards campaign.

She co-produced the Oscar hopeful with David Thion at Les Films Pelléas under the banner of her Paris-based banner Les Films de Pierre, the company created by Yves Saint Laurent’s long-time business and life partner Pierre Bergé which she acquired on his death in 2018.

New production Langue Étrangère is a bittersweet coming-of-age tale starring Lilith Grasmug as French teenager Fanny who travels to Germany on language exchange trip. Her German counterpart...

llker Çatak, the director of Germany’s Oscar shortlisted The Teachers’ Lounge with Anne-Katrin Titze on Wim Wenders, the director of Japan’s Oscar shortlisted Perfect Days: “Wim is such a nice guy! He’s not my competitor, he’s one of my teachers.”

Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Young Ahmed (Le Jeune Ahmed), Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Entre Les Murs), Stéphane Brizé’s The Measure Of A Man, starring the unforgettable Vincent Lindon, and Gus Van Sant’s Elephant are four of the films that inspired llker Çatak’s outstanding The Teachers’ Lounge. Shot by Judith Kaufmann, edited by Gesa Jäger (Jakob Lass’s Love Steaks with Lana Cooper and Franz Rogowski; Anna Winger's Transatlantic and Maria Schrader's Unorthodox series with Shira Haas), stars a terrific Leonie Benesch (Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon).

Ms Nowak (Leonie Benesch) in the classroom with her students...

It was easy enough to get made, said German director Ilker Çatak over coffee at the Toronto International Film Festival. He came up with the idea and co-wrote low-budget indie “The Teacher’s Lounge” with his old school-mate Johannes Duncker. “We wanted to make a movie about a young teacher who gets into trouble,” said Çatak. “Education is a topic that everybody has a relationship with. So whether you’ve been in school, or you have kids in school, it’s a universal thing.”

Inspired by a true incident from their school days, the writers set the entire movie inside the school, cutting out the backstory of the idealistic young teacher, Carla (Leonie Benesch). “We eliminated the whole exposition, and jumped right into the action,” said .Çatak. “And another key was to just have it take place in one place. And to restrict ourselves on all kinds of levels: in the screenplay,...

Totally Killer is a horror film with a killer cast, combining slasher horror with sci-fi time travel for a chilling and intriguing premise. The ensemble cast, led by Kiernan Shipka, impresses and adds depth to the story, making the most of the film's genre mashup. The cast includes well-known actors like Olivia Holt, Charlie Gillespie, and Randall Park, who bring their talent to their respective roles in Totally Killer.

Totally Killer, Prime Video’s latest horror film, has a killer cast. Just in time for Halloween, Totally Killer arrives with a chilling and intriguing premise, marrying a slasher horror with the sci-fi element of time travel. Directed by Nahnatchka Khan from a screenplay by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo, Totally Killer features a cast of well-known actors and relative newcomers.

Totally Killer brings together a large and talented cast, with each role adding to the film — be they as red herrings,...

This year’s New York Film Festival will open with the North American premiere of Todd Haynes’s new film “May December,” festival organizers announced on Tuesday.

“‘May December’ is a tour-de-force of writing, acting, and directing: a film built on moment-to-moment surprise, as thought-provoking as it is purely pleasurable,” said Dennis Lim, the artistic director at the New York Film Festival, in a press release. “It cements Todd Haynes’s place as one of American cinema’s most brilliant mischief-makers and as an all-time great director of actors. Todd has been a consistent presence at the New York Film Festival for almost his entire career, and we are very excited to open this edition with one of his most dazzling achievements.”

“We are all so proud and moved to have been invited to open the New York Film Festival with the North American premiere of ‘May December,’” Haynes said...

The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival came to a close on Saturday, May 27 after two weeks of films, celebrities, parties and interviews in the small city on the French Riviera. Now that the prizes have been given out, we can start looking at what could be top contenders for next year’s Oscars. Let’s analyze the results from this year’s festival and see this history that each category has when it comes to the Academy Awards.

Over the past several years the festival has been a springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. We’ve really seen it be an influence in the International Feature category where in-competition films have been nominated a regular basis. Recent Cannes films that ended up being top awards contenders in above the line categories include “Triangle of Sadness,” “Drive My Car,” “Parasite,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “BlacKkKlansman.

It’s been 15 years since Redbelt, the last theatrical feature from David Mamet, and time has not been kind to the writer-director. Like many in his generation, his mind has been fully Fox News-ified to the point where I had thought his 2008 feature might be his last film (not discounting his HBO outing in 2013) and his potential funding has dried up. That hasn’t been the case, however, as his next project has been announced ahead of production beginning this fall and it will be sold at the Cannes market.

Set in 1963 and scripted by Mamet and Nicholas Celozzi, Assassination is set during a “crucial justice hearing against organized crime, when the head of the Chicago mob orders the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, creating a deadly conspiracy while altering the fate of a nation.” With a cast featuring Al Pacino, Viggo Mortensen, John Travolta, Shia Labeouf, Rebecca Pidgeon,...

“My Life As a Zucchini” director Claude Barras has set up his latest stop-motion animated feature, “Savages!”

Production company Gebeka International — a Hildegarde-Goodfellas company formed in 2021 — and production, financing and sales studio Anton are behind the project, which will be written by Barras and Catherine Paille (“Magnetic Beasts”). The project will be shopped to buyers in Cannes next week.

“Savages!” follows the emotional journey of a girl, her father and a rescued baby orangutan. The film has a strong environmental and conservationist message, exploring the crisis of the destruction of rainforests.

An official synopsis for the film reads as follows: “In Borneo, at the edge of the tropical forest, Kéria is given a baby orangutan that has been rescued from the palm oil plantation where her father works. At the same time, Kéria’s younger cousin Selaï comes to live with her and her father as he seeks refuge from...

Jason Ritter is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his roles in Joan of Arcadia and Gravity Falls.

Jason Ritter Biography: Age, Early Life, Family, Education

Jason Ritter was born on February 17, 1980 (Jason Ritter: age 42) in Los Angeles, California. His parents are actors Nancy Morgan and comic actor John Ritter, who was the star of hit 70s sitcom Three’s Company. He has three siblings.

Ritter went to high school at the Crossroads School in California. He graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Ritter also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Jason Ritter Biography: Career

Ritter started his career in 1990 as Harry Neal Baum in the television movie The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story. He co-starred as Frank Baum’s son alongside his own father, John Ritter.

Some of Ritter’s other roles include the movies...

Elizabeth Anne “Lizzy” Caplan is an American actress. She first gained recognition for her roles in the films Mean Girls, Cloverfield and Hot Tub Time Machine. She has since become known for playing prominent roles in television series such as True Blood, Masters of Sex and New Girl. Throughout her career she has garnered many awards and accolades for her work, including a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series and two Emmy Award nominations.

Lizzy Caplan. Depostiphotos

Caplan was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. As a child she attended Alexander Hamilton High School before being accepted into Juilliard’s drama program where she studied acting. In 2004 she made her big screen debut with the film Mean Girls which was a runaway success that catapulted Caplan to fame. Following this success came a string of roles in films like Hot Tub Time Machine, 127 Hours,...