/ Ladj Ly

director

born 1978 in Mali

 “The cub is clearly a metaphor for being deprived of freedom, of being unnaturally trapped,” he says. “The misery of Montfermeil has never been really addressed. We’re still trapped, still misunderstood, still underfunded.”

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“I bought my first camera aged 17 and made my first feature-length documentary during the 2005 riots. The riots erupted at the bottom of my building, and ultimately I had 100 hours of rushes.” At the time, the rioters were condemned by interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy as “racaille” or scum, a slur that still outrages Ly. “He caused the riots by underfunding us and using such words to get the far-right racists to support his election campaign rather than the National Front.” Just possibly it worked: Sarkozy was elected French president two years later." Stuart Jeffries The Guardian