Director’s quote
The film is above all the chronicle of the life of a class: a community of 25 people who did not choose, but rather were called upon, to become fellow citizens between the four walls of a classroom over the course of an entire year.

“Mr. Cantet, who shares the screenwriting credit with Mr. Bégaudeau and Robin Campillo, tends to keep his ideas more strategically nestled in the unassuming guise of a documentary-inflected realism that plays a lot like life because that’s precisely where it comes from. Here Mr. Cantet — whose earlier features include “Human Resources” and “Time Out,” two other dramas about systems of power — has done that rarest of things in movies about children: He has allowed them to talk.” - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Laurent Cantet, director
Son of school teachers in a quiet country hamlet in the Poitou region, Laurent Cantet graduated from France's most prestigious film school, IDHEC (renamed La Fémis ) where he became friend with future directors like Dominik Moll. He started shooting documentaries and shorts where one can find his favorite themes: social struggle and family relationships . His later works show his ongoing interest for subject linking intimacy and politics.
Laurent Cantet received the Best debut Cesar award in 2001 for Ressources humaines.

2005 Vers le sud (Heading South)
2001 Emploi du temps (Time Out)
1999 Ressources Humaines (Human Resources)
1997 Les Sanguinaires

Francois Begaudeau
Francois Begaudeau is a teacher, journalist, singer, actor, and the author of several acclaimed books. His experiences teaching in a difficult high school were chronicled in his book "Entre Les Murs" ("The Class"). The film version, which he co-wrote and in which he stars, won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film.