Cult film ‘La Haine’ set for stage adaptation as hip-hop musical

Watching La Haine nearly 30 years ago, there was a sense of something inexorable about violence in the French suburbs.

French director Mathieu Kassovitz’s critically acclaimed black-and-white film opens with video images of news footage of urban riots. The film then follows three friends — Hubert, Vinz and Saïd — over the course of 24 hours in a world of police brutality. It ends with the killing of one of the young men by a police officer.

The film served as a revelation about the grim reality of life in what the French call the “banlieue” – the deprived suburbs with housing projects – and took the 1995 Cannes Film Festival by storm. Kassovitz won the best director award, and La Haine achieved cult status in France and around the world.

Now, Kassovitz and theatre director Serge Denoncourt are breathing new life into the story by adapting it into a hip-hop stage musical, premiering in Paris in October.

The message of the film remains as relevant as ever with the tragic 2023 police shooting of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old of North African descent which sparked riots across the country and unleashed anger over police violence

“Yes, we know why we are doing this,” said Kassovitz, reflecting on Nahel’s killing. “It’s for him. It’s for all the victims that suffered that kind of violence after so many years.”

Kassovitz and his team spent months travelling across France to find the right actors for the job. He believes that rising stars Aliyou Diop, Samy Belkessa, and Alexander Ferrario are perfect to recreate the film’s chemistry on stage.

“There’s a lot of love in the ‘hood”, said Diop, who comes from a working-class neighborhood in the port city of Le Havre. “Otherwise we’d all be shooting at each other. In the movie you see three buddies living in a complicated context, and you forget the context as you watch the film. They manage to make us forget that. That’s why I like them so much. They laugh, they laugh in their misery.”

For Kassovitz, the difference between the film and the show is that there is no need to warn people that this is about kids from the projects. “Thirty years ago nobody knew them, so we had to make a movie to introduce them to the French culture,” he said.

The stage adaptation of La Haine premieres this October at La Seine Musicale in Paris, before embarking on a tour across France, with stops in cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Dijon, and Rennes. Tickets are available here.