Living and growing exposed to inequalities can be a condemnation for many people; but those who can get out from there can take that experience and turn it into art, as in the case of the French director Ladj Ly.
This Muslim director is causing a revolution in Europe with his first feature Les Misérables, which was a complete success at the Cannes Film Festival, won the Goya for Best European Feature and now aims at the Oscars.
Les misérables. When injustice becomes unbearable
But not everything was easy in the preparation of the story that takes the title of Victor Hugo's classic. In a report to Spanish newpaper ElDiario.es, Ly said: “If I had done a comedy there would have been no problem. But talking about the suburbs in France is a taboo. Nobody likes to show it and less like I did,” he explained.
The harshness of his story made the financing of the project complicated, the French establishment would have preferred the project to be suspended forever.
Luckily that did not happen, because Ladj Ly's film places us in the Montfermeil neighborhood, where the director spent his adolescence, and where history is built away from the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity proclaimed by the Republic.
The plot revolves around a new policeman (Damien Bonnard) who arrives at a division used to not abiding by the law, but an event will put the entire neighborhood in a state of constant violence.
