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French director Ladj Ly is at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend with second feature Les Indésirables.

When it comes to social injustice in 21st-century France, writer and director Ladj Ly has been on the frontlines of history. A child of the Montfermeil housing projects in the Paris suburbs, he captured the rage of the 2005 riots that engulfed the neighborhood in the 2006 docu short “365 jours à Clichy Montfermeil.” His celebrated feature debut, 2019’s “Les Misérables,” chronicles the abusive relationship between the residents of that town and often resentful police officers who live miles from the area.

TIFF has its share of titles having their world premieres over the next week-plus, but Ladj Ly‘s new film “Les Indésirables” may be one of the most notable internationally. Ly’s follow-up to his previous film “Les Misérables,” which screened at TIFF in 2019 and earned nominations at the César Awards and the Oscars, is another tale of civil unrest in France, told in the director’s signature style.

With the much expected SAG-AFTRA strike announced Thursday, fall film festivals are in wait-and-see mode as to whether it’s a season sans stars.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Ladj Ly, the French filmmaker behind “Les Misérables,” will return to the Toronto International Film Festival with his latest drama, “Les Indésirables.” The film will have its world premiere at the fall festival, where it is selling distribution rights. Buyers, particularly those looking to land the rare foreign language film that could appeal to U.S. audiences, will certainly be keen to see what Ly has brought to Toronto. “Les Misérables,” with its searing depiction of police violence and roiling tensions in an immigrant community on the outskirts of Paris electrified critics when it debuted in Cannes in 2019. It won Cannes’ Jury Prize and went on to pick up Oscar and BAFTA nominations after it sold to Amazon.

The fall fest season is revving up.

Christopher Vourlias Debutante director Ramata-Toulaye Sy will join one of world cinema’s most select clubs when she climbs the stairs of the Grand Theatre Lumière on May 20 for the premiere of “Banel & Adama,” which unspools in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It marks just the second time in the French fest’s 76-year history that a Black woman will compete for the Palme d’Or, a glass ceiling that was shattered only four years ago by Sy’s French Senegalese compatriot, Mati Diop (“Atlantics”). While acknowledging the honor, it is a club, Sy admits, about which she has some ambivalence. “I really hope that soon all this will be taken for granted — that we won’t be counting the Black directors, that we won’t be counting women,” the helmer tells Variety. “It means that there’s still something wrong, that there’s still something that hasn’t become completely normal and natural.”

The 2022 Gotham Award nominations are out this morning — the October noms and late November event are industry bellwethers, coming at the start of awards season following fall festival buzz. More to come, but here’s the list below.

Romain Gavras wastes no time in “Athena” informing the audience of the stakes. There have been three cases of police brutality within two months in the titular majority-minority community.

Designed as something akin to a Greek tragedy for today’s moment, Venice Film Festival Competition title Athena is a torrent, an inundation, a cascade of rage, fury and frustration over the realities of life for a particular group of French families. Such conditions exist in most societies, some more dire than others, but here the wages of pent-up anger are presented with a single-minded intensity and extended duration that would be hard to exceed.

Ben Croll Exploring Paris’ working-class suburbs with a fresh set of eyes while reframing the immigrant experience under a more incisive lens, a dynamic generation is blazing new trails in French cinema. And if artists like “Saint Omer” filmmaker Alice Diop, “Athena” co-writer Ladj Ly, and “The Gravity” writer/director Cedric Ido share little in common but age – interestingly enough, all were born within one or two years of one another – the group’s shared spotlight in Venice and Toronto certainly reflects a rise in opportunity for diverse perspectives. “Today, we do see renewal,” says Unifrance managing director Daniela Elstner. “There’s an altogether new breath, a young generation looking to change, to dare, and to propose new kinds of films, [and with that] a willingness on the part of festival programmers to welcome these filmmakers into main competitions a little bit faster than before.”

Netflix has released a new trailer for “Athena,” the latest film from Romain Gavras which will premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival and hit streaming on Sept. 23.Described as a modern Greek tragedy, “Athena” follows a French soldier named Abdel (Dali Benssalah) who is called back from the frontline after his youngest brother, still a child, is killed in an alleged police altercation.

The deadline for submissions for the International Film Oscar is less than two months away. While some nations’ selections have been announced (South Korea selecting “Decision to Leave“) or are obvious (“Close” for Belgium), others are very up in the air.

EXCLUSIVE: Romain Gavras’ Athena will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, and we’ve got a first-look at the trailer for the immersive modern tragedy from Netflix — check it out above. Following Athena’s Lido bow, it will be released globally on Netflix September 23.

From French filmmaker, Romain Gavras comes chaos like no other, as “Athena” tells the tragic tale of three siblings in unexplained circumstances. Romain Gavras is known for his work on music videos for popular musicians like Kanye West, Jay-Z, and M.I.A.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe upcoming Venice Film Festival is getting ready to unleash a robust roster of Oscar hopefuls promoted by boatloads of Hollywood stars, with Netflix spearheading the Lido landing in September.As Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera begins to lock in his selection, Variety understands there are four Netflix original films in the Venice mix.The streamer’s Venice titles include Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn Monroe drama “Blonde” starring Bond girl Ana de Armas (“No Time to Die”) as the Hollywood icon; Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise,” with Greta Gerwig, Adam Driver and Jodie Turner-Smith, which is based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Don DeLillo; “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,” the new film from Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu, which chronicles the story of a Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker going through an existential crisis; and Romain Gavras’ modern tragedy “Athena,” co-written by the French “The World is Yours” director with “Les Miserables” filmmaker Ladj Ly.

The jury for the 2022 Cannes Film Festival assembled for the press and for the most part, it was a straightforward affair. “Les Miserables” director Ladj Ly remarked about how the invite was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThe Cannes Film Festival has added two more films to the Official Selection of the 75th edition, which will kick off on May 17. Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “As Bestas,” a French-Spanish movie, has been added to Cannes Première, the new section dedicated to world premieres for movies that are slightly more mainstream, similarly to the out-of-competition strand.

A year after starring in the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner “Titane,” the French actor Vincent Lindon will preside over the jury deciding the top prize at this year's festival.The Cannes Film Festival announced Tuesday that Lindon will be jury president at next month's festival in the south of France.

Cannes has announced its jury for the 75th annual festival next month, naming French actor Vincent Lindon as president of this year’s competition jury that will hand out the Palme D’Or, as well as naming stars Rebecca Hall and Noomi Rapace to the jury. Of the eight members on this year’s Cannes main competition jury, Lindon, Hall and Rapace will also be joined by “A Hero” director Asghar Farhadi, “Midnight Special” director Jeff Nichols, Indian actress Deepika Padukone, Italian actress and director Jasmine Trinca, “Les Miserables” actor and director Ladj Ly and “The Worst Person in the World” director Joachim Trier.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFollowing a tortuous journey and dozens of crazy rumors, the Cannes Film Festival has landed Vincent Lindon, the French actor of last year’s Palme d’Or winning “Titan,” as jury president of its 75th edition.Lindon, who won best actor in 2015 for his role in Stephane Brizé’s movie “The Measure of a Man,” will be the first French star to be jury president since Isabelle Huppert in 2009. The festival said “French celebrities have often held this role in an anniversary year, such as Yves Montand in 1987 for the 40th Festival, Gérard Depardieu in 1993 for the 45th Festival, and Isabelle Adjani in 1997 for the 50th.”The jury will comprise two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (“A Hero”), as well as U.S.

The Cannes Film Festival has set Vincent Lindon as its jury president for the 75th edition, which kicks off next month. The French actor, who won the Best Actor award in Cannes in 2015 for his role in The Measure Of A Man, starred in last year’s Palme d’Or winner Titane.

Netflix today provided a taste of its slate of original French productions coming up in 2022, which includes 25 new titles for launch this year and 20 projects currently in production. The slate, selected and developed by the Netflix France creative team, reps a total investment of more than 200M euros ($221M) across 2022. The streamer recently signed a deal with the French industry in which it committed to producing at least 10 local films per year, investing about 40M euros ($45M).   Among the projects highlighted during a presentation in Paris today was Romain Gavras’ formerly untitled feature, which is now called Athena. An immersive and modern tragedy, it stars Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon and is co-written with Oscar nominee Ladj Ly (Les Misérables) and Elias Belkeddar. The logline reads: In the space of a few hours following the tragic death of their younger brother in troubling circumstances, the men’s lives will tip over into chaos.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentNetflix is teaming with Romain Gavras, the French filmmaker of “The World is Yours” and “Our Day Will Come,” for his next film which will start production this week in France. The untitled film will mark Gavras’s follow up to his 2018 film “The World is Yours,” a crime comedy with Isabelle Adjani and Vincent Cassel, which world premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

French-Greek filmmaker Romain Gavras, whose credits include the 2018 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection The World Is Yours and 2020 Toronto premiere Our Day Will Come, is underway on his new film, this time with Netflix.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen several filmmakers work on new shorts while in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Folks like Spike Lee, Michel Gondry, and David F.

Bong Joon Ho's acclaimed Parasite, which also landed five other Oscar nominations including best picture, best director and best original screenplay, looks like the film to beat in the international feature film derby.

Ladj Ly had already beaten the odds by world premiering in competition at Cannes and winning the jury prize with his feature debut “Les Miserables.” Ly has now scored an Oscar nomination for his politically-charged film in a particularly competitive year for the international feature film race.