The China Mail - French Palme d'Or winner Laurent Cantet dies

"He died this morning in Paris of an illness," his agent Isabelle de la Patelliere told AFP.

The filmmaker had been working on a film called "L'apprenti" ("The Apprentice") which had been set for release next year.

"The Class", based on an autobiographical novel, told the moving but also funny tale of an idealistic young teacher taking on a troubled class of underprivileged kids in a Parisian school.

Starring the author of the novel, it was awarded the Palme d'Or in 2008 by a Cannes jury led by US actor Sean Penn.

It became one of just a handful of Palme d'Or-winning films to sell more than one million tickets at the French box office in the past two decades.

The Cannes film festival bid farewell to "a fierce humanist, who sought light despite social violence and found hope despite the harshness of reality".

Cantet's other works include "Time Out" ("L'Emploi du Temps"), inspired by the real-life tale of a man who killed his parents, wife and children after pretending to be a successful doctor for two decades. It won two prizes at the 2001 Venice Film Festival.

His 2014 film "Return to Ithaca" was a story of Cuban friendship and disillusionment with the country's revolution. It was delisted from a Havana film festival.

He returned to Cannes in 2017 with "The Workshop", a film recounting a group of troubled youth attending a writing workshop near the southern city of Marseille.

His last work "Arthur Rambo", released in 2021, explored how a reputation could be destroyed on social media.

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