Robin Campillo on Losing Friend Laurent Cantet and Finishing His Coming of Age Drama ‘Enzo’: ‘It Was About Joyfully Continuing What He Started’

Above all, Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo were friends.

Close since their student days, the duo soon began a keen creative partnership — co-writing films that Cantet directed and Campillo edited. When Cantet’s health began to decline, the two were already deep into developing “Enzo.”

Now brought to the screen by Campillo, this year’s Directors’ Fortnight opener began as a passion project for Cantet, who set out to explore class and sexual fluidity through the story of a privileged young man rejecting his place in society.

Cantet thought about the project for years, ultimately committing to it fully even as he battled cancer. By the time the Palme d’Or winner passed away in April 2024, the film was on the cusp of production, with a cast largely composed of first-time actors already in place.

“Losing Laurent felt like losing a parent,” said Campillo, who had already planned to take on a more active role assisting Cantet during the shoot. “We were all devastated. But I told myself, the worst thing we could do was stop. I’m not superstitious — this wasn’t about honoring Laurent in some solemn way. It was about joyfully continuing what he started.

“Of course, I was also on antidepressants,” he added. “It was a strange time — but that strangeness fed into the film. It helped the actors Laurent had chosen, and it brought out something very powerful.”

Cantet and Campillo envisioned the title character — played by newcomer Eloy Pohu — as a quiet enigma: a young man who resists social expectations through silence and withdrawal, slipping through the cracks as a form of protest. His complex desire for a Ukrainian army reservist — played by fellow newcomer Maksym Slivinskyi — further anchors the story in an exploration of identity.

“We never saw this as a traditional coming-out story,” Campillo explains. “Enzo simply wants to face the world, and his desire for the soldier becomes a kind of political commitment — a way of projecting himself onto an ideal.”

That interplay between desire and idealism made “Enzo” a uniquely fitting cap to a long collaboration.

“Laurent had a more direct way of confronting the audience with reality, while I tend to focus on inner tension,” Campillo says. “That’s what gave us such a strong partnership.”

“I made this film for my friend,” Campillo says. “That made the experience lighter, and less anxious than when I direct something that’s entirely my own. If Laurent had been there, we would’ve kept rewriting the script through the shoot. But I think the final film is very close to what we would have made together. I just don’t want it to feel like a tribute. A new film by Laurent Cantet—that would be the best tribute of all.”