VENICE, Italy (A.W.)—French-Armenian filmmaker Robert Guédiguian’s 2017 film La Villa will be in competition at the 74th Venice Film Festival, reported U.S. entertainment magazine Variety on July 27.
La Villa (English title: The House by the Sea) is set at a picturesque villa owned by an old man by a little bay near Marseille. His three children have gathered by his side for his last days: Angela, an actress living in Paris; Joseph, who has just fallen in love with a girl half his age; and Armand, the only one who stayed behind in Marseille to run the family’s small restaurant. It is 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 into turmoil these moments of reflection in this magical place.
Guédiguian is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. Most of his films—including La Villa—star Ariane Ascaride and Jean-Pierre Darroussin.
He is the son of a German mother and an Armenian father. He evokes his paternal roots in his 2006 film Le Voyage en Armenie (Voyage to Armenia). He has a working-class background: His father is a worker on the Marseille docks.
Like Marcel Pagnol and René Allio before him, Guédiguian anchors his films in social reality. His films are strongly marked by the local and regional environment of the city of Marseille, and in particular L’Estaque (north-west Marseille), as for example in his Marius et Jeannette. His 2011 film The Snows of Kilimanjaro premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. He has been married to actress Ariane Ascaride since 1975, and they have two daughters, Valentine and Madeleine.
The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (Italian: Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, “International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale”), founded in 1932, is the oldest film festival in the world and one of the “Big Three” film festivals alongside the Cannes Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.
The 74th Venice International Film Festival is scheduled to be held Aug. 30-Sept. 9.
