An ethnically diverse trio of angry young men living in a Paris housing project struggle with how to react after a friend of theirs is beaten by police during a riot. Winner of the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Shot in cinema verité style, this film follows a day in the life of three aimless, violence-prone, ethnically-diverse young men who hail from the same decaying housing project in Paris.
Vinz, who is Jewish, is the angriest and the least intelligent of the three. North African Said is calmer, but is the most despairing about his future. Hubert is Black, and the most mature, channeling his rage through boxing. Although the trio seethes with fury over the arrest and senseless beating of an Arab friend, each manages to keep the other in check. But that changes after Vinz finds a loaded gun -- and the trio becomes entangled with the police, and later a group of skinheads.

Distributed in France by MKL/Lazennec Diffusion. Distributed in the USA by Jodie Foster's Egg Pictures.

Co-produced by Kasso Inc. Productions.

Shown at the New York Film Festival October 12, 1995, and at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.

Released theatrically in New York City February 9, 1996.

Additional cast: Edouard Montoute, Karim Belkhadra, Solo Dicko, Marc Duret, Tacek Lokcinski.

Director/screenwriter Mathieu Kassovitz is also an actor -- he won a 1995 César for "Most Promising Male Newcomer" for the film "See How They Fall." The César Award is France's version of America's Academy Awards.

"Hate" is dedicated "to those who died while [this film] was in production."

DVD Features:

Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.78
Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
(unspecified) - French
Subtitles - English - Optional
Additional Release Material:
Featurette: "Social Dynamite"
Introduction: Jodie Foster
Audio Commentary: Mathieu Kassovitz - Director
Trailers: Theatrical Trailer
Text/Photo Galleries:
Stills/Photos
Essay: Ginette Vincendeau

Vincent Cassel: Actor/"Hate"
Hubert Kounde: Actor/"Cafe Au Lait"
Said Taghmaoui: Actor/"Hate"

Mathieu Kassovitz: Director/"Cafe Au Lait"

"...Prepare to be jolted by the intensity....The performances are as white hot as the subject matter..."
"...Extremely intelligent....The in-your-face lensing and more formal compositions are used to maximum effect..."
"...Raw, vital and captivating....HATE is a visceral fable of a divided society heading blindly for a crash-landing..."
"For all the comic byplay, Kassovitz keeps the viewer braced for the simmering tension to boil over."
"...Writer-director Mathieu Kassovitz (Cafe au Lait) mines so much tension and pointed dialogue from a low budget and deceptively simple premise..." -- 3 1/2 out of 4 stars
"...As a filmmaker, Kassovitz has grown since his first film. His black-and-white cinematography camera is alert, filling the frame with meaning his characters are not aware of..."
"...[A] precise and troubling film....Smartly aware that many urban problems are also global..."