Les Misérables

Ladj Ly's Les Misérables won the Jury Prize at Cannes 2019 (sharing the prize with Kleber Mendonça Filho's Bacurau) and the César for Best Film at the 45th César Awards in 2020. The film was Ly's debut feature; he had been a long-time documentary filmmaker, particularly through his work with the Kourtrajmé collective in the Montfermeil district of suburban Paris where the film is set.

The film follows a newly transferred police officer Stéphane (Damien Bonnard) who joins an anti-crime brigade in Montfermeil, the real-life setting of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables, since transformed into one of the most ethnically and economically marginalised suburbs of contemporary Paris. He is partnered with two more experienced officers, the volatile Chris (Alexis Manenti) and the more measured Gwada (Djebril Zonga). The film follows a single day in their patrol that escalates through a series of confrontations with local gang leaders, immigrant-community organisers, and the children of the housing-estate.

Ly's commitment to procedural-realist accuracy (his actual neighbourhood, residents from the actual community, the specific institutional dynamics between the brigade and the housing-estate population) produced one of the most directly grounded recent works of French banlieue cinema. Julien Poupard's photography (handheld, low-light, real-location) and the central performances of the three police officers and the supporting cast of estate residents combined into a film that has continued to be a continuing reference point in French political-cultural discourse about police-community relations.