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Cannes winner 'The Class' to vye for Oscar
2008-09-20
PARIS (AFP) - "The Class," a film shot in a rough Paris school that won the top prize at Cannes this year, has been chosen as France's entry for the 2009 foreign film Oscar, the selection committee said Friday. France's National Cinematography Centre is to submit the movie to the Oscars Academy, which will reveal its shortlist of films selected to run in January, ahead of the awards ceremony the following month. Based on a best-selling novel by a French teacher, Francois Begaudeau, and starring a cast of teenage non-professional actors, "The Class" takes a hard look at a year in a multicultural school in the French capital. Directed by Laurent Cantet, it was the first homegrown French movie in two decades to claim the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival, the world's biggest cinema showcase. Cantet told AFP he was "delighted" by the French panel's choice. "I think the film's message is universal enough to reach a foreign audience," he said. "Who would have thought that a film shot in such an experimental way, with such an open script, without professional actors, would go this far." The film hits French cinema screens next week and has been widely sold in the United States, where it will be shown at the opening of the New York Film Festival on September 26 in the presence of Cantet and part of its young cast. France's Marion Cotillard picked up the best actress Oscar this year for her role as chanteuse Edith Piaf in the biopic "La Vie en Rose."
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