Far-right mag­a­zines are using Ladj Ly’s crim­i­nal record for defamation

One of the break­out stars of this year’s Cannes Film Fes­ti­val was Ladj Ly, the first-time French film­mak­er behind Les Mis­érables who sur­prised crowds on the Croisette by split­ting the Jury Prize hon­ors with the South Amer­i­can genre-warp­er Bacu­rau. From hum­ble begin­nings, he’s shot to the top of the glob­al cin­e­ma cir­cuit for his neo­re­al­ist look at acri­mo­ny between cops and cit­i­zens in the ban­lieues out­side Paris.

But those same hum­ble begin­nings are now being used to cast a pall over what would oth­er­wise be a by-the-books mete­oric rise. The Hol­ly­wood Reporter notes that the French far-right mag­a­zines Valeurs Actuelles and Causeur have been dis­sem­i­nat­ing the demon­stra­bly false claim that Ly was con­vict­ed of com­plic­i­ty in an attempt­ed murder.

The truth is that Ly’s charge was for com­plic­i­ty in a kid­nap­ping and seques­ter­ing case, resolved in 2009 with a three-year prison sen­tence. Ly served two, and has been an upstand­ing mem­ber of pub­lic soci­ety in the years since, as far as any­one can say.

But mag­a­zines moti­vat­ed by what appears to be a racist agen­da have not only dredged up a detail that seems far past rel­e­vance mer­it­ing re-reportage, they’ve upgrad­ed it to one of the most heinous crimes a per­son can com­mit. Ly has tak­en legal action, suing both pub­li­ca­tions for ​“libel” and ​“racist slan­der,” as THR’s trans­la­tion relates.

There’s a grim irony to the fact that mak­ing a movie about black men sub­ject to insti­tu­tion­al prej­u­dices has led to Ly deal­ing with the exact same thing, but he will get the last laugh. Even if the law­suit doesn’t pan out, Les Mis­érables has already raked in a box-office wind­fall in France and Ama­zon will in all like­li­hood soon push it through the Acad­e­my to an Oscar nomination.

Even if they don’t, that still leaves Ly’s inevitable sopho­more film, and the right­eous fury ani­mat­ing his debut isn’t going any­where soon.