‘L’Abandon’ Premieres at Cannes and Opens Nationwide, Reconstructing the Samuel Paty Case

Overview

• The feature, which opened Wednesday, screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival as it rolled out in theaters across France.
• It retraces the eleven days before the 2020 killing, following a student’s false claim, the father’s posts that spread online, a preacher’s campaign, and the identification of the teacher to the attacker.
• Director Vincent Garenq avoids showing the murder and zeroes in on missed protections, including school missteps, a hesitant response from city officials and police, and an overloaded national online terror tip line.
• Mickaëlle Paty consulted on the screenplay and has called the film faithful to the record, with Antoine Reinartz portraying Samuel Paty and Emmanuelle Bercot playing the school principal.
• The production was shot in secret in summer 2025 and disclosed by distributor UGC on March 2 after an appeal court upheld prison terms of six to fifteen years for four people involved in the case.