'Les Misérables' shines at French César Awards [Culture]

‘‘Les Misérables” is the title of a sacred best film at the César ceremony which took place on Friday February 28th. It is the first fictional feature film by French director of Malian origin, Ladj Ly. The film that tells the story of a police blunder that looks like a sociological documentary in a neighborhood of Monfermeil in France.

An officer named Stéphane, recently arrived in the Monfermeil. An anti-crime brigade, will quickly discover the tensions between different groups in the neighborhood. During a violent arrest, everything will turn upside down during a police blunder that will be filmed by a drone.

Through this scenario, the director of the film “Les Misérables” Ladj Ly tried to lift the veil on the identity of the actors and victims of urban violence by declaring that “Les Misérables” are not only the inhabitants of the cities, misery unfortunately affects more and more French people… We live in a wounded country, and it is poverty that divides the French. It’s time to lay down our arms.”

The French director of Malian origin was born on January 3, 1978 in Mali. He grew up in Montfermeil in the district of Les Bosquets. He made his first videos, notably for the French rapper Oxmo Puccino, who like him is of Malian origin, and his first documentaries, ‘‘365 jours à Clichy-Montfermeil’‘, shot after riots in 2005 in the French suburbs, before shooting the documentary, 365 ‘‘jours au Mali’‘ in 2014 and co-directed by Saïd Belktibia.

In 2011 and 2012, the director’s life will see several slip-ups, including a two-year prison sentence and a one-year suspended sentence for assault and battery.
In 2017, he released the short film version of the film Les misérables, and it was in 2019 that the feature film will be released.

In total, the film attracted more than 2 million viewers and received a Caesar award from the public. The feature film also allowed the actors of the film to be rewarded: Alexis Manenti, one of the main actors received the Caesar for the best male hopeful. Flora Volpelière, chief editor, received the César for best editing. This is not the first award for the film, it has won a dozen awards across Europe, including the Jury Prize at Cannes, and was even been nominated for the Oscars and the Golden Globes.

“The goal for us was to be in the top five and we’re in the top five and it’s a victory. It’s great to be on the red carpet with the biggest players”, Ly said.

It’s hard to talk about the 45th César without mentioning the controversy surrounding the nominations obtained by “J’Accuse”, the Franco-Polish director who was arrested and charged in Los Angeles in March 1977 in a case of sexual abuse of a minor Samantha Geimer, a young girl then aged 13.

The filmmaker and director was awarded the Cesar for Best Director, which caused a lot of controversy. Adèle Haenel, who has embodied a new impetus for #MeToo in France since she accused director Christophe Ruggia of “repeated touching” as a teenager in November, said that what the members of the Academy of Caesars “did” on Friday evening ‘‘was to send us back to silence and to impose on us the obligation to keep quiet”.