Laurent Cantet

Laurent Cantet was born in Melle, Deux-Sèvres, to schoolteacher parents. He studied photography in Marseille before graduating from the prestigious French film school Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC, now La Fémis) in 1986, working initially as a television documentarian with Marcel Ophüls.

Cantet broke through in 1999 with Ressources humaines (Human Resources), an incisive drama examining factory labor disputes and generational divides that won two César Awards. He followed with Time Out (L'Emploi du temps, 2001), based on the Jean-Claude Romand deception affair. In 2008, Cantet achieved the highest honor in international cinema when his film The Class (Entre les murs)—a semi-documentary drama starring teacher François Bégaudeau and real students in a multicultural Paris high school—won the Palme d'Or at Cannes by unanimous vote of Sean Penn's jury, becoming the first French film to win the Palme d'Or in 21 years.