From Ginette Vincendeau’s essay La haine and after: Arts, Politics, and the Banlieue.

The explosive contents of the film, its unusually young creative team (Kassovitz and the three lead actors were all in their twenties), the fact that it won the prestigious best director prize at Cannes, its huge popular success, and the media circus that followed turned La haine into a phénomène de société that reached beyond its cinematic value.

Mathieu Kassovitz’s celebrated story of inequality in a Paris banlieue is a timely rerelease in the Black Lives Matter era.

The film also won prizes for Best Film and Best Editing at César Awards in France in 1996.

Mathieu Kassovitz won The Palm D’Or for Best Director for La Haine at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995.

In the land that gave us champagne, La Haine is a Molotov cocktail. Today, it still possesses a raw energy and has all the ingredients to capture a young audience: a (still) recognizable and captivating story, great performances by young actors like Vincent Cassel, humor, (rap)music, violence and style. It captured a young generation on the brink, caught between French culture and that of their parents, and in love with American rap music and cinema. The film, written and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, had a huge impact when released in 1995 because of both its content and form. La Haine is recommended by the Studium Generale Film Committee because of both the social issues it tackles, which are still relevant today, and the (now classic) style of black and white cinematography. The tension builds as the film follows this mixed-race young male trio from a run-down banlieue across 24 hours.

Black and white visuals, a thumping hip-hop soundtrack and graffiti-daubed streets underscore the urgency and rebellion at the heart of this game-changing classic.Vinz, Saïd and Hubert are furious when their friend Abdel, an Arab youth from a Parisian banlieue, is arrested and so badly beaten by cops that he ends up in the hospital fighting for his life. Label description: The film takes place over 24 hours following the police shooting of a young man from a deprived housing estate, and shows the world through the eyes of three friends – one North African, one Jewish and one black – who are frustrated with politicians, the media and police brutality. The two-disc set is scheduled to arrive on the market on November 21.

The British Film Institute will reissue on Blu-ray Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995), starring Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui, Abdel Ahmed Ghili, and Benoît Magimel.

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