"Les Miserables" is a "universal" film, says Ladj Ly in Hollywood

Los Angeles (AFP)

"Les Miserables", France's candidate for the Oscar for best international film, is "a universal film" in that it depicts misery and racism, told AFP its director, Ladj Ly, at the a projection in Hollywood.

"Les Miserables" tells the story of a police bust in a sensitive city of Seine-Saint-Denis, near Paris, through the fate of "Pento" (Damien Bonnard), a police officer who arrives at the anti-police brigade. crime and will be caught in a situation that exceeds it.

The action may well take place in a French suburb, in Montfermeil as a part of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, "it's a film that is universal," Ladj Ly told AFP on the red carpet of the festival Colcoa de Los Angeles, dedicated to French cinema.

"The misery is in the four corners of the world, we can be in the United States, Brazil in the favellas, or in South Africa, so I think it's a film that should speak to the greatest number" , he explained.

"This film is a cry of alarm that I send to politicians," he told a little later to the audience of the festival Colcoa, whose film was opening. "And I tell them that the situation is complicated, that it lasts for thirty years, but that there are always solutions".

The director said "super proud" but surprised to have been preferred to defend the colors of France at the Oscars to competitors like "Proxima" Alice Winocour, with Eva Green as an astronaut.

"We did not really expect it, we thought we had very little chance with the films we had in front and it was a surprise," he told AFP.

The 39-year-old Ladj Ly's hit film is his first feature film and has already won the Jury Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival.

"Les Miserables" will be released officially in France on November 20th, but previews have been organized there, provoking "explosive and very intense reactions", said the director.

Amazon has acquired the rights for the United States and is already sold in more than fifty territories around the world.

The 23rd edition of the Colcoa Festival is being held in Los Angeles until September 28th.

© 2019 AFP