Every year the French education system filters out students who are earmarked as potential candidates for high ranking government positions. They are shipped off to a number of schools known as "Grandes Ecoles," where they are trained to become future leaders of the country. GRANDE ECOLE is a scandalous dramatization of events that happen among the fiercely competitive students, focusing on a burgeoning homosexual relationship between two roommates. The strict rules of the school forbid such contact, and the students soon come to blows with the overly fussy administration, who seek to clamp down on the boys activities. The tension between the students and the school officials builds to an unbearable breaking point, with director Robert Salis drawing on the main characters ethnic origins to add another facet to the conflict. A brave statement on the state of contemporary French schooling, GRANDE ECOLE is a powerful, moving drama from a director who, on this evidence, has a glittering future ahead of him.

Every year the French education system filters out students who are earmarked as potential candidates for high ranking government positions. They are shipped off to a number of schools known as "Grandes Ecoles," where they are trained to become future leaders of the country. GRANDE ECOLE is a scandalous dramatization of events that happen among the fiercely competitive students, focusing on a burgeoning homosexual relationship between two roommates. The strict rules of the school forbid such contact, and the students soon come to blows with the overly fussy administration, who seek to clamp down on the boys activities. The tension between the students and the school officials builds to an unbearable breaking point, with director Robert Salis drawing on the main characters ethnic origins to add another facet to the conflict. A brave statement on the state of contemporary French schooling, GRANDE ECOLE is a powerful, moving drama from a director who, on this evidence, has a glittering future ahead of him.