Les Misérables director Ladj Ly has been nominated for an Oscar in the International Feature Film category and it’s safe to say, he’s feeling pretty chuffed about it.
The French filmmaker made his full-length feature directorial debut with 2019 movie Les Misérables and now he’ll be battling it out for an Academy Award at this year’s ceremony.
He faces competition from the likes of Corpus Christi (Poland), Honeyland (North Macedonia), Parasite (South Korea) and Pain and Glory (Spain), starring Antonio Banderas.
Les Misérables isn’t based on the Victor Hugo novel of the same name, but it does take inspiration from the classic and Ly says it’s an ‘ego boost’ to be included in this year’s Oscars nominations.
Speaking to Variety, Ly said: ‘Of course it’s an ego boost! But it’s not the most important.’
‘It means so much to my children, to the children of Montfermeil, to all the children in France and around the world. To show them that it’s good to have dreams, and that they shall not hesitate to fight and even launch a revolution when necessary to make their dreams come true,’ he said.
Ly won the support of Hollywood filmmaker Spike Lee, after Spike saw the movie himself, and recalling that meeting, the 40-year-old said: ‘Filmmakers like Spike Lee have always been models for me and he made me want to make movies.
‘At a time where so many young people were struggling to identify themselves in movies in France… meeting with Spike Lee made me proud because I saw that my work could strike a chord on the other side of the Atlantic,’ he added.
Now, he’ll be hoping to follow in Spike’s footsteps as the US producer won an Academy Award in 2019 for Best Adapted Screenplay with BlacKkKlansman.
It was recently announced that Spike had made history by being named the first black jury president for Cannes Film Festival.
Spike said he was ‘shocked, happy, surprised and proud all at the same time’ over the opportunity, adding: ‘You could easily say Cannes changed the trajectory of who I became in world cinema.’
‘In this life I have lived… my biggest blessings have been when they arrived unexpected, when they happened out of nowhere.’
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