The tragic story of Samuel Paty brought to the screen: trailer for Abandonment
The film with Emmanuelle Bercot and Antoine Reinartz is in the official selection out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
It was the news item that shook France… History teacher Samuel Paty was the victim of a terrorist attack: he was assassinated near his college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, on October 16, 2020. Ten days earlier, he gave a lesson on freedom of expression to his students by exposing them to caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed produced by the newspaper Charlie Hebdo…
Director Vincent Garenq tackles a major subject for his fourth feature film… The film inspired by the investigative book by Stéphane Simon, The last days of Samuel Patyretraces the eleven days which preceded the professor’s death, trying to get as close as possible to the facts… It was filmed in secret in the summer of 2025.
Abandonment delivers a high-tension, realistic-looking trailer. The feature film is in the official selection out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
Antoine Reinartz will play Samuel Paty, while Emmanuelle Bercot will play the school principal.
UGC had already unveiled a first teaser the day after the verdict in the appeal trial of the assassination of Samuel Paty.
“I loved I would have imagined my name would go into the history books.”
Synopsis: “Everyone knows the name of Samuel Paty, but few people really know his story. On October 16, 2020, Samuel Paty, professor of History and Geography, was murdered as he left his college. In light of the investigations and trials, this film looks back on his last eleven days, and the spiral that led to his tragic death.”
Abandonment will be released on May 13 in cinemas. Trailer:
