27/02/2005 - The film earned a Cesar prize for its director, Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche, and its young star, the 18-year-old actress Sara Forestier

A film that follows a group of alienated youth in a Paris suburb as they prepare to perform an 18th-Century play has won France's top cinema award. L'Esquive earned a Cesar prize for its director, Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche, and its young star, the 18-year-old actress Sara Forestier. It saw off competition from big-budget French epic, A Very Long Engagement, and the box-office hit, The Chorus.

The low-budgetL'Esquive depicts the travails of a group of youth getting ready to perform a school play by the 18th-Century dramatist, Marivaux. The actors are mostly amateurs and the action is set in the impoverished suburbs of Paris, home to thousands of immigrants from North Africa and their children. Kechiche said he made the film because he "wanted to show people we don't normally see at the cinema".

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A Very Long Engagement, a World War I drama featuring Audrey Tautou, won five Cesar awards.
The Chorus, a film about a schoolteacher who introduces an unruly classroom to the pleasures of classical singing, won two awards - for best music and best sound.
US film Lost in Translation won the award for best foreign feature.

(Translated from French)