Rob Munday

A favourite of the festival scene in 2017/18, Ladj Ly’s explosive Les Misérables immerses its audience in the Seine-Saint-Denis region just outside of Paris as we join a trio of police officers as they patrol the streets, consistently overstepping the line. Now adapted into a feature, which earned an Oscar nomination and a host of awards – including the Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes and 2020 César for Best Film – Les Misérables announced Ly as an important voice in the world of filmmaking and proved instrumental in his step from short film to feature. Made in 2017, is it too early to call this a classic?

16-minutes in length, Les Misérables follows Laurent (aka Pento), Gwada and Chris – three members of the Police’s ‘anti-crime brigade’ – as they monitor their district, performing unnecessary searches on teenage girls and threatening shake-downs on the area’s young inhabitants. As things quickly spiral out of the control and the trio embark on a manic hunt for the operator of a drone, who filmed their latest violent actions, we begin to understand the volatile relationship between those who are supposed to uphold the law and the residents of the area.

Alexis Manenti (centre) as Chris – the actor was also involved in writing the short & feature.

Though set in a very specific area just outside of Paris – the banlieue, the working-class areas that surround Paris were infamously labelled “no-go zones” by Fox News – the real power in Ly’s short lies in the universal themes it explores. With the unnecessary deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor still reverberating around the world, despite being made in 2017, Les Misérables’ tale of excessive police force, unfortunately, still feels as topical as ever. 

There are short to feature adaptations where it feels like a director is showcasing tone or style, but with Ly’s short you can watch the feature and see how the foundations were laid in this proceeding piece. Actors, characters and storylines remain the same, but in the feature everything is fleshed out, more immersive and more impactful. It’s the perfect example of the short to feature progression.

With Ly’s feature released in 2020, he joined a raft of other filmmakers making the step-up from short film during the year. Jacob Chase, Natalie Erika James and Rob Savage also released features that began their journey as short films, while Bassam Tariq, Elizabeth Lo, Eva Riley, Fyzal Boulifa, Lorcan Finnegan and Michael Matthews all released their debut features.

To see more examples, check out our The Short Films that began as Features article.