Cinéma de banlieue is a term used to describe films that take place in the margins of the city, especially those that focus on working-class neighborhoods. The genre has its roots in the early silent films of Louis Feuillade, who was one of the first to go out and shoot the city, at that time in a state of rapid transformation. Feuillade made the city and the working classes a central focus his films, particularly his series, Les Vampires (1915).
Following Feuillade, the interest in filming the urban and particularly the working-class areas of the city was developed by the directors in the 1930s, particularly those associated with Le Réalisme poétique or poetic realism. These include such directors as René Clair in such films as Sous les toits de Paris (1930) and Marcel Carné in his Hôtel du nord (1938). Unlike Feuillade, however, these directors often worked on soundstage recreations of these milieux and did not actually film in the city.
A further development came with the advent of the Nouvelle Vague or New Wave. Directors such Jean-Luc Godard took hand-held cameras out to film in the city, in a move reminiscent of Feuillade. Godard, like Feuillade, was also particularly interested in the quartiers populaires, or the working-class areas. Classic examples are Godard's À bout de souffle (1960), and Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle (1967).
As it is currently used, the term refers mostly to films set in largely immigrant neighborhoods around Paris or Marseille. Films included in this category often focus on issues of racism, exclusion, and unemployment. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with the term cinéma beur (beur is a term for the children of North African immigrants in France) because many, although not all, of the directors who have made such films have come from this background. It must be noted there are other differences with what is typically termed beur cinema. Examples of banlieue cinema include Malik Chibanel's Hexagone (1994), Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995), Karim Dridi's Bye Bye (1996), and Paul Vecchiali's Zone franche (1996).
Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins
Guide to cinema. Academic. 2011.