Mathieu Kassovitz has never left the fringes of French cinema, where commitment is not just a veneer but a foundation. Thirty years after La Haine, his manifesto film on social fractures, the filmmaker returns with a stage adaptation. It is titled La Haine, jusqu’ici rien n’a changé. This reinterpretation blends rap, dance, theater, and video projections to rekindle an anger that remains intact.
The staging is directed by Kassovitz himself with Serge Denoncourt. The choreography is entrusted to Émilie Capel and Yaman Okur. On stage, Alexander Ferrario, Samy Belkessa, and Alivor portray Vinz, Saïd, and Hubert respectively. The whole is supported by a contemporary soundtrack, ranging from Oxmo Puccino to Youssoupha, including Akhenaton and Médine.
A career stretched between cinema and revolt
Born in 1967 in Paris, Mathieu Kassovitz grew up in a household already oriented towards imagery. His father, Peter Kassovitz, is a director. His mother, Chantal Rémy, is an editor. He was introduced to cinema very early and quickly moved behind the camera. After Métisse (1993), La Haine revealed him in 1995. The film won the Best Director Award at Cannes and became a milestone in French social cinema.
This success did not divert him from burning issues. With Assassins (1997), L’Ordre et la Morale (2011), or even Le Bureau des légendes, he delves into the same themes: systemic violence, power, identity, collective memory. Even his international ventures – Munich by Steven Spielberg, Amen. by Costa-Gavras – extend an intellectual coherence.
A claimed commitment, a polarizing discourse
On May 19, 2025, as a guest on the show C à vous relocated to Cannes, Kassovitz declared: "There are no more native French people." He added: "We must be proud to be one of the most integrated countries in the world. And I hope we will continue to mix."
His words were spoken during the Festival where he was presenting the musical version of La Haine. They sparked strong reactions on social media. Some saw it as a call for the erasure of national identities, others as a simple universalist affirmation. The phrase was widely repeated, debated, sometimes instrumentalized. When questioned, Kassovitz did not seek to nuance: he considers this fight against racism a fundamental issue.
His statement is part of a public trajectory where the boundaries between art and politics are porous. He is known for his free speech, often radical, rarely tempered. It echoes this sharp formula from his father, Peter Kassovitz, delivered to the newspaper Le Monde: "The story of my son is that of a guy who would have liked to be a big Black man while he is a small white Jew."
An aesthetic of fracture, a cry still audible
The new stage version of La Haine is not nostalgia. It aims to prove that nothing has changed, or very little. It recalls the death of Makomé M’Bowolé, killed by a police officer in April 1993, which inspired the original script. It places the dialogues in a context of recurring violence, persistent inequalities, and distrust of institutions.
The fourteen scenes of the play – between filmed fragments and physical performances – weave a link between the 1990s and 2025. Far from being a mere museum piece, the show invites reflection on the social impact of cinema and its power to mobilize.
A trajectory at the border of art and debate
Mathieu Kassovitz continues to chart a singular path. His anger and sometimes brutal irony, as well as his non-consensual artistic choices, shape his profile. It is that of a man who keeps his distance from compromises.
His motorcycle accident in 2023 could have kept him away from the stage for a long time. It did not. His presence in Cannes, his sharp words, and this play as a collective reactivation of an old malaise show an unchanged will: to make cinema a broken mirror of our social tensions.
In the face of controversies, he persists in believing in the power of speech and the responsibility of the artist. Not to preach, but to shake things up. To reveal, behind the tumult, the fractures we too often get used to ignoring.