The director died at the age of 63

At the age of 63, award-winning director Laurent Canté has died, leaving behind a great work for his native France.

So far, the cause of his death has not been clarified. “Cante was suffering from an illness” was enough for his agent to declare.

His works confronted complex issues of contemporary French society, such as meritocracy, the education system, diversity and class struggle. He was the creator of the film “Between the Walls” (Entre les Murs), an in-depth look at France’s education system that won the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and was later nominated for an Oscar.

The film depicted life in the classroom of a Paris high school and the relationship between the students – improvised by unprofessional teenagers – and their occasionally exasperated teacher.

The director made his feature film debut in 1999 with Ressources humaines. A little later, in 2001, came Cante’s critically acclaimed film “Free time” (L’emploi du temps) which had a great impact. The plot concerns the 35-hour work week that has captured all of France. Frank, a business school graduate, returns to his provincial hometown to take up a management position in the factory where his father has worked for 30 years. At first Frank makes the mistake of actually asking the workers on the assembly line. Upper management then manipulates his findings to fire workers.

Another masterpiece of Kant is “Return to Ithaca” (Return to Ithaca, 2014) where he narrates the past of five Cubans (from 50 to 60 years old) through their conversation on a rooftop in Havana. The reason for the meeting was the return of one of them after 16 years of exile in Madrid. They talk, dance, drink, smoke, comfort each other, get angry, sing and above all share dreams, memories, feelings and stories of their strong friendship.

In 2017 he returned with “The atelier” (L’atelier). The story this time unfolds in a creative writing summer workshop somewhere in the South of France. In this film, Cante emphasizes the problems that the youth of the time in France had, finding the path they really want to follow.