The Cinematheque

25th Anniversary Restoration

“This is virtuoso, on-the-edge stuff, as exciting as anything we’ve seen from the States in ages … A vital, scalding piece of work.”

Tom Charity, Time Out

French actor Mathieu Kassovitz’s second feature as director is urgent, incendiary filmmaking: a searing drama of violence and rage amongst marginalized youths dealing with dead-end lives and police brutality in the poor banlieues (suburbs) of Paris. Shot in stunning black-and-white by Pierre Aïm, La Haine follows three second-generation immigrant friends in the aftermath of an anti-police riot: Vinz (Vincent Cassel, fierce in his breakthrough role), who is Jewish; Hubert (Hubert Koundé), a boxer of African descent; and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui), a North African Muslim. Kassovitz’s blistering movie, winner of Best Director honours at Cannes and France’s César Award for Best Film, pulls no punches and offers no easy solutions. As this 25th-anniversary restoration and re-release reveals, it remains, sadly, as timely as ever. ​“Kassovitz took the film world by storm with La Haine … A landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country’s ongoing identity crisis” (Janus Films).

“Kassovitz’s classic has been re-released with a new urgency and relevance in the Black Lives Matter era … La Haine is an unmissable response to an unending emergency.”

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian