Robert Guédiguian

Robert Guédiguian describes himself as “a militant who makes films”. Portraitist of life in Marseille’s L’Estaque district, setting for most of his films, chronicler of the lives of workers, wharfies and the less privileged classes as they struggle to make some kind of a living in a globalised world that couldn’t really care less.

For more than thirty years, this son of an Armenian father and German mother has been telling the world stories of unemployment and poverty, precarious jobs, immigration, drugs, xenophobia, tales of humble people that Guédiguian portrays with fondness and respect in the films where he generally works with the same team: his wife, the actress Ariane Ascaride, and actors such as Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Gérard Meylan. Titles like Marius y Jeannette (Marius and Jeannette, 1997), Charge! (À l'attaque!, 2000), The Town Is Quiet (La Ville est tranquille, 2000), Marie-Jo and Her Two Lovers (Marie-Jo et ses deux amours, 2002) and The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro, 2011) attest to this engagement.