No Dogs or Italians Allowed

The manual skills of a labouring grandfather are passed down to his grandson – who becomes not a farmer or a builder, but an animator. Alain Ughetto's second feature film (after Jasmine, 2013) is a fond family chronicle told in a highly inventive and entertaining way: in painstaking stop-motion animation, using puppets and crafted objects. But there is surrealism in this recreation of the past, seeing as broccoli stand in for trees, and sugar cubes represent bricks. And because so much of the tale depends on hands, the filmmaker's own hand makes frequent appearances in the set, interacting especially with his grandmother, Cesira. Ughetto lays out an immortal, cyclical story of love and family, poverty and prosperity, accident and fortune. But the content moves well beyond sentimental nostalgia: two World Wars, the rise of fascism and the Spanish flu epidemic, among other momentous signs of the 20th century, all mark this sometimes tragic (but never solemn) reconstruction. Above all, Ughetto traces the path of a cross-cultural migration from Italy to France, as a tightly-knit community of workers finds itself exploited as a social class by State and Church alike, suffering a galling dose of racism along the way. A splendid, life-affirming portrait. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)