Cannes Film Festival - Palme D'or Winner The Class In Running For Oscar

The Class, the winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, is to represent France for next year's foreign language film Oscar.

Laurent Cantet's film follows the lives of a Parisian school's inhabitants for a year.

Given the title Entre les Murs in its native land, the film was intended as "a reflection of French society – multiple, many-faceted, complex," according to Cantet.

The Cannes winner will aim to become the first French film to win the foreign language Oscar since 1992's Indochine.

It faces competition from German entry The Baader Meinhof Complex, concerning the left-wing militant group, Canadian drama The Necessities of Life, from the director of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, and Brazilian biopic Last Stop 174, among others.

The five nominees for the 2009 foreign language feature Oscar will be unveiled by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and on January 22nd.

Last year's award was taken by Austrian war film The Counterfeiters, which told of the currency forgery carried out under duress by concentration camp detainees in the second world war.

The Class, meanwhile, will receive a gala screening at the Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival on Saturday October 18th.