Bad education

December 02, 2008 In May, Laurent Cantet had the surprise of his life when his low-budget docudrama "The Class" won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the first French film to do so in more than 20 years. "The Class" has been doing that with resounding success, and now it has a chance to speak to an even bigger audience as France's official entry in the foreign-language Oscar race. In France, and in the sort of poor urban high school Cantet was thinking of, those issues were severe.

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