Movies by Ariane Ascaride

No Dogs or Italians Allowed

No Dogs or Italians Allowed

Early 20th century, in the Ughetto family's home village, Ughettera, Northern Italy. Life in the region had become very difficult and the Ughettos dreamed of a better life abroad. Legend has it that Luigi Ughetto crossed the Alps and started a new life in France, thus changing his beloved family's destiny forever. His grandson retraces their story.

La saga du rail

La saga du rail

Armenia

Armenia

This is a story about returning to ones ancestral homeland. Anna is a cardiologist who discovers her father has fled to his native Armenia after being diagnosed with a heart problem. Despite their contentious relationship, she sets out to bring her father back for this operation. Anna is a tough-minded, headstrong woman with little feeling for her fathers homeland or patience with its politics and socially intrusive culture, yet she finds this journey not only a reunion of sorts, but one of reconciliation as well.

Over The Cracks

Over The Cracks

Odile is getting ready to celebrate her birthday. As her kids and grandkids are on their way to visit her, Jean, her husband, unexpectedly passes away. Unable to cope with reality, she hides him under the bed.

Marius and Jeannette

Marius and Jeannette

Jeannette is a single mother living in a working-class community in Marseilles; she tries to support herself and her two kids on her salary as a check-out girl at a supermarket and lives in an apartment complex where everyone is thrown into close proximity with everyone else. Marius is working as a security guard at a cement factory that has gone out of business; he's also squatting in the building, since the plant is soon to be demolished and he'll be needing his money later on. One day, Jeannette happens by the factory, and spotting severa...

Where the Heart Is

Where the Heart Is

From the director of Marius et Jeannette, this story of two working-class families is a fable with an optimist streak. A young black man, Francois, is wrongly accused of rape by a racist policeman. The story is told in voiceover by his childhood friend, neighbor, and the mother of his future child, Clementine, who is white. The city is Marseilles as in the previous film, symbolic with its churches, prisons and ruins. Except in this film, director Robert Guediguian also ventures outside, taking the story to Sarajevo; two different cities, one...

'Till Death Do Us Part

'Till Death Do Us Part

À la vie, à la mort ! (1995) In Estaque, a northern suburb of Marseilles, stuck between oil refinery smokestacks and the Mediterranean sea, a handful of die-hards has taken refuge in a cabaret. There is José, the owner, a big-hearted gypsy who loves cars and women's bodies; Joséfa, his wife, the establishment's stripper despite her advanced years and Marie-Sol who climbs the hill every day to visit Notre-Dame de la Garde and beseech Virgin Mary to give her a child. There is Patrick, her husband who has been unemployed for ages but who is ki...

Once in a Lifetime

Once in a Lifetime

At Léon Blum High School in Créteil, France, a history teacher decides to have her weakest 10th grade class participate in a national history competition.

Les secrets de la belle endormie

Les secrets de la belle endormie

The House by the Sea

The House by the Sea

By a little bay near Marseille lies a picturesque villa owned by an old man. His three children have gathered by his side for his last days. It’s time for them to weigh up what they have inherited of their father’s ideals and the community spirit he created in this magical place. The arrival, at a nearby cove, of a group of boat people will throw these moments of reflection into turmoil.

Heaven Will Wait

Heaven Will Wait

Mélanie, 16 years old, lives with her mother. She likes going to school, her friends, playing the cello, and she wants to change the world. But when she meets a boy on the Internet and falls in love with him, her world changes as she is gradually recruited by Daesh. Sonia is 17 years old, and she almost did something irrevocable to “guarantee” her family a place in paradise. These teenage girls might be called Anaïs, Manon or Leila, and one day they all might go some way down the recruitment process. But can they ever come back from it?

Robert Guédiguian, cinéaste

Robert Guédiguian, cinéaste

For over twenty years, Robert Guédiguian has been making films that occupy an essential place in French cinema. In film after film, he evokes the social chronicle of his working-class childhood. We witness an adventure rich in reflections on the film director’s profession, political commitment, the intimate relation between real and fictional characters, and a shared desire to create.

L'Amour, la mort, les fringues

L'Amour, la mort, les fringues

They stick to our skin and soul, our clothes. We believe we buy them, they own us. Warning ! these rags are traitors: far from dressing us they expose our complexes, our moods ... Clinging to their hangers, to our memories too, they exercise an underhand dictatorship. Snuggled up, huddled together, they build a bulwark against oblivion in our closets. Often stained for eternity with ink or redcurrant, impregnated with perfume, tears sometimes, piled up or messed up on our shelves, they remain forever linked to the happy or unhappy chapters o...

Gloria Mundi

Gloria Mundi

Daniel leaves prison. He returns to Marseilles where Mathilda, his daughter, has just given birth. Nicolas, her spouse, a self-employed driver, is exhausted while Mathilda is a sales assistant on a trial basis. But, one night, Nicolas is assaulted by taxi drivers determined to reduce unfair competition.

Il était une fois Marseille

Il était une fois Marseille

The heroine of this film is immortal. She is over 2600 years old. This is the self-portrait of the oldest city in France. A city whose landscapes bear the scars of a destiny that has spared it no trials. Gateway to the Orient, crossroads of trade and immigration, Marseille is a mosaic with 111 districts and 200 nationalities. Rebellious, chaotic, in turn desired, torn apart, transformed, it is reborn each time from its ashes. Marseille tells us more about the history of France and sheds light on what France is today.