Laurent Cantet, French Director Who Won Palme d’Or for ‘The Class,’ Dies at 63
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.
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“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. At the César Awards, France’s national film celebration, it won best feature film. Cantet’s next film, “Time Out” (2001), expanded upon his interest in working life, this time following a man who hid the fact that he was laid off from his family.
Cantet’s other credits include “Heading South” (2005), about sexual tourism in Haiti; the anthology film “7 Days in Havana” (2012); “Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang” (2012), based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name; the comedy-drama “Return to Ithaca” (2014); and “The Workshop” (2017), which follows a group of young people from the La Ciotat commune in the south of France. Cantet’s most recent film was “Arthur Rambo,” which released in 2021 and followed a teen whose online identity is revealed.
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