Known for Directing
Robert Jules Guédiguian (born 3 December 1953) is a French filmmaker, producer and actor. Most known for Marius and Jeannette (1997) and Gloria Mundi (2019), his films usually star his wife Ariane Ascaride or Jean-Pierre Darroussin. Guédiguian is the son of a German mother and an Armenian father, whose family immigrated to France in the early 20th century after the Armenian genocide. He evokes his paternal roots in his 2006 film Le Voyage en Armenie. He has a working-class background, as his father is a worker on the Marseille docks. Guédiguian became concerned with political questions and for a while was involved with the French Communist Party. In 2008 he joined the Left Party in France. He has been married to actress Ariane Ascaride since 1975 and they have two daughters, Valentine and Madeleine. Like Marcel Pagnol and René Allio before him, he 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), for example in Marius et Jeannette. His 2011 film The Snows of Kilimanjaro premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Guédiguian signed an open letter published in Libération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, and for a humanitarian corridor into Gaza to be established for humanitarian aid, and the release of hostages. Source: Article "Robert Guédiguian" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Born
December 3, 1953 (age 72)
Birthplace
Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
Filmography
83 films, 2 shows


A Woman Today
2026 · 2h 3m
country: France
The life of a young woman is turned upside down after a violent assault, making her realize the fragility of her freedom.


The Thieving Magpie
2025 · 1h 41m
country: France
Maria, who's not as young as she used to be and who helps people older than her, is living from hand to mouth. She can't quite accept her precarious situation and steals a few euros here and there from all those lovely people she looks after with such devotion, and who adore her for it… But after an accusation of abuse of a vulnerable person, Maria winds up in police custody.


And the Party Goes On
2023 · 1h 46m
country: France
In Marseille, Rosa, 60, dedicated her life to family and politics with the same sense of duty. Everyone considers her unwavering, until the day she falls in love with Henri. For the first time, Rosa is afraid to commit. Between the pressure of his family, politics and a desire to indulge in her feelings, the conflict is difficult to sustain.


Mali Twist
2022 · 2h 9m
country: Canada
Mali, 1960. The youth of Bamako dance the twist to rock and roll music newly imported from the West and dream of political renewal. Samba, a young socialist, falls for spirited Lara during one of his missions to the bush. To escape her forced marriage, she secretly flees with him to the city. But Lara’s husband won’t let them be and the Revolution soon brings painful disillusions as they dream of a future together.


Gloria Mundi
2019 · 1h 47m
country: France
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.


The House by the Sea
2017 · 1h 47m
country: France
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.


Don't Tell Me the Boy Was Mad
2015 · 2h 14m
country: France
Aram, a young man from Marseille of Armenian origin, blows up the Turkish ambassador's car in Paris. Gilles, a young cyclist who was passing at that precise moment, is seriously injured. Aram's mother feels guilty and feels the need to visit Gilles at the hospital and beg for his forgiveness, something that Gilles does not understand. Against the advice of his comrades in Beirut, Aram decides to go meet his victim.


Ariane's Thread
2014 · 1h 32m
country: France
Ariane is having her birthday party but no one comes. She decides to leave at the seaside and take part with her life that disappointed her.


The Snows of Kilimanjaro
2011 · 1h 47m
country: France
A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.


Army of Crime
2009 · 2h 19m
country: France
This gripping historical drama recounts the story of Armenian-born Missak Manouchian, a woodworker and political activist who led an immigrant laborer division of the Parisian Resistance on 30 operations against the Nazis in 1943. The Nazis branded the group an Army of Crime, an anti-immigrant propaganda stunt that backfired as the team's members became martyrs for the Resistance.


Lady Jane
2008 · 1h 38m
country: France
After having perpetrated a serious crime, Muriel, François and René, childhood friends born in the working-class streets of Marseille, go their separate ways, until, 15 years later, they meet again when another crime is committed.


Armenia
2006 · 2h 5m
country: 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.


The Last Mitterrand
2005 · 1h 56m
country: France
A young journalist (Lespert) helps the French President compile his memoirs.


My Father is an Engineer
2004 · 1h 48m
country: France
Her parents and a former lover try to help a woman out of an apparently unjustified catatonic condition.


Marie-Jo and Her 2 Loves
2002 · 2h 4m
country: France
Marie-Jo is a middleaged woman living an ordinary life in Marseilles with her husband, Daniel and her daughter, Julie. Daniel runs a small construction business in which Marie-Jo helps. She also works at the local hospital. Outwardly their marriage is loving. But Marie-Jo has been in love with another man for more than twelve months.Marco works as a harbour pilot and is deeply in love with Marie-Jo. Learning that loving two men is impossible, Marie-Jo is forced to make a choice.


The Town Is Quiet
2000 · 2h 13m
country: France
A dark tale of working-class life in Marseilles, a city in crisis. Interesting characters include a hard-bitten but compassionate fish market worker with a drug addicted daughter and a moody bartender with a shocking secret life.


Charge!
2000 · 1h 30m
country: France
Two scriptwriter friends with opposing personalities fuss and fight as they cobble together a script for a modern political film. Their arguments seem endless, they constantly stray from the plot, but the story slowly takes shape around garage mechanics at Moliterno & co. who fight a multinational in order to save their business.


Where the Heart Is
1998 · 1h 53m
country: France
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 devastated by war, the other by a bad economy and unemployment. A la Place du coeur won a Special Jury Prize at the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival and was also shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival and the 1998 Montreal Film Festival.


L'argent fait le bonheur
1998 · 1h 31m
country: France
How the mothers of a deprived suburb of Marseille will create a solidarity committee under the aegis of the parish priest. Gathered in assembly, they will invent a solution to the endemic misery of their city.


Marius and Jeannette
1997 · 1h 45m
country: France
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 several cans of paint, tries to take two of them home with her. Marius spots her and tries to chase her away, while she rails at him with curses against the capitalist system. The next day, an apologetic Marius appears at her doorstep, cans of paint in hand; the two soon become friendly, and a romance begins to bloom, though it quickly becomes obvious that Jeannette's romance novel fantasies are a bit off the mark from what Marius has in mind.


'Till Death Do Us Part
1995 · 1h 48m
country: France
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 kind despite appearances and their friend Jaco who is having a hard time. His wife and daughters hate him for not keeping up on the mortgage repayments. Last but not least is Papa Carlossa who believes that Franco still rules Spain and fantasizes about bumping him off.


Dieu vomit les tièdes
1991 · 1h 40m
country: France
Three men and a woman from a city in the south of France made a pact as teenagers to never forget that they were children of the poor.


Ki lo sa ?
1986 · 1h 30m
country: France
A group of children from the same neighborhood meet a few years later. When the day comes, they meet again and take stock of their lives.


Rouge midi
1985 · 1h 50m
country: France
From 1920 to 1975, the hopes and disappointments of four generations of Italian immigrants living in a working-class district of Marseille.


Last Summer
1981 · 1h 25m
country: France
Gilbert, his brother Boule and some friends live in Estaque. Between carelessness, petty theft and social gloom, they feel like the outcasts of a society where Gilbert has no future. This is the "last summer" that he intends to spend there, dragging his idleness, nevertheless beginning a romance with Josiane, a nice worker.