DVD: The Class, For retail and rental, (Artificial eye)

François Bégaudeau plays the teacher he used to be in Laurent Cantet's Palme d'Or-winning adaptation of his own autobiography.

A nuanced look at race and culture in France through the medium of a school classroom, it is an impressive piece made all the more so by the fact that the children were, largely, asked to improvise their parts. The students' disillusionment with the school system is mirrored by Bégaudeau's frustration at his inability to communicate with them. A triumph of cinematic realism.