Ladj Ly

He won a Jury Prize in Cannes Film Festival for Les Misérables in 2019. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

Ladj Ly
Born	(1980-03-19) 19 March 1980 (age 44)
Nationality	French
Occupation	Film director Screenwriter
Notable work	Les Misérables

Ly's parents are from Mali and he grew up in Montfermeil, a district of Bosquets. He started making films with his friends Kim Chapiron, Romain Gavras, and JR, in the collective Kourtrajmé.

He directed his first films, notably for Oxmo Puccino, and his first documentaries, 365 jours à Clichy-Montfermeil [fr] (365 days in Clichy-Montfermeil), filmed after the 2005 French riots; Go Fast Connexion; and 365 jours au Mali (365 days in Mali).

In 2011, Ly was given a three-year prison sentence for kidnapping and false imprisonment. In 2012, the sentence was reduced on appeal to two years imprisonment, and one year suspended sentence.

Les Misérables is the first non-documentary film he directed. The film received many awards, notably at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and a nomination for the César Award for Best Short Film in 2018. In the same year, he was nominated for the César Award for Best Documentary Film for À voix haute : La Force de la parole [fr] with Stéphane de Freitas [fr].

In 2018 in Montfermeil, Ly created a free film school, called "L'école Kourtrajmé".

With co-writers Alexis Manenti and Giordano Gederlini, he won the Lumières Award for Best Screenplay, and was nominated for the César Award for Best Original Screenplay and the European Film Award for Best Screenwriter, for the 2019 feature film version of Les Misérables.

His second feature film, Les Indésirables, is slated to premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.