The Workshop

Antoine has joined a summer writing workshop in La Ciotat, on the southern coast of France, where a handful of young people in social integration programmes are meant to produce a noir novel under the guidance of Olivia, an established novelist. The workshop keeps steering the group toward the town's industrial past, above all its shipyard, closed for twenty-five years. Antoine resists that nostalgia. Preoccupied by the anxieties of the present, he clashes with the other participants and with Olivia, whose reaction to his aggression is a mixture of alarm and fascination.

Laurent Cantet directed the film, his second after The Class, working from a screenplay he wrote with Robin Campillo. Denis Freyd produced it for Archipel 33>35. Marina Foïs plays Olivia and Matthieu Lucci plays Antoine, with Warda Rammach, Florian Beaujean, Julien Souve and Olivier Thouret among a credited cast of twenty-seven. The film runs 114 minutes and mixes drama with mystery and thriller elements.

Released in October 2017, the film met with moderate audience approval: it holds a 6.5 rating on IMDb from around 2,400 votes and a 6 on TMDB from roughly 130 votes. Critics were more favourable, giving it 7.1 from 44 reviews, a higher assessment than that of the general viewers.