9 Best Movies to Watch From Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Cinéma

With cardboard houses, sugar winters, and broccoli trees, No Dogs or Italians Allowed at first seems lighthearted, playful, and not too serious. Alain Ughetto casts himself asking his grandmother Cesira about his family, but we only see his hands moving and interacting with the characters as if he was crafting clay model miniatures. However, the whimsical approach sugarcoats the very tragedies that struck his family– from the multiple wars to the discrimination they’ve faced as immigrants– with excellent animation and puppetry that feels much more lifelike than 3D CGI. In telling his family’s story, Ughetto also retells 20th century European history, reframing the worldwide events and movements through a personal perspective.

Genre: Animation, Drama

Actor: Alain Ughetto, Ariane Ascaride, Bruno Fontaine, Christophe Gatto, Diego Giuliani, Laura Devoti, Stefano Paganini

Director: Alain Ughetto

My Life as a Zucchini (or Courgette in Europe) is unlike any kids' movie you'll see in America. It isn't afraid to be honest about children's feelings, no matter how dark or sad, nor is it afraid to be frank about things like intimacy and abuse. It understands that kids need these kinds of narratives too, and sometimes they need to hear them without being pandered to. 

There is an openness to it that makes it comforting to adults as well. Lines like “Sometimes, we cry because we’re happy," are so deceptively simple and tender that they'll catch you off guard. Couple this seemingly endless reserve of empathy with adorable, almost melancholic stop-motion animation and you get a film that will have you floored for days, regardless of your age.

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Romance

Actor: Adrien Barazzone, Brigitte Rosset, Iannis Jaccoud, Michel Vuillermoz, Monica Budde, Natacha Koutchoumov, Paulin Jaccoud, Sixtine Murat, Véronique Montel

Director: Claude Barras

Rating: PG-13

In Things to Come, life tests a philosophy professor on the very same subject she teaches. For Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) — who has two grown-up children, a husband of 25 years, and a recurring publishing contract — the future isn’t something she gives much thought, because she assumes it’ll be more of the same. When her students protest against a law to raise the pension age, this middle-aged ex-anarchist can’t bring herself to engage with their apparently far-sighted cause; unlike them, all she can think about is the present. But then a series of events overturn her life as she knew it and she finds herself, at middle age, staring at a blank slate.

This is a movie about our surprising ability to deal with disaster — the instincts that emerge when we least expect them to. What’s more, it’s about the insistence of life to keep going no matter how difficult a period you’re experiencing — something that might initially seem cruel but that is, actually, your salvation. The film’s academic characters and philosophical preoccupations never feel esoteric, because Hansen-Løve’s gentle, intelligent filmmaking puts people at its center as it explores human resilience — not through stuffy theory, but an intimate study of someone coming to terms with a freedom she never asked for.

Genre: Drama

Actor: André Marcon, Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet, Edith Scob, Edward Chapman, Elie Wajeman, Élise Lhomeau, Grégoire Montana-Haroche, Guy-Patrick Sainderichin, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Charles Clichet, Julianne Binard, Lina Benzerti, Lionel Dray, Margaretta Scott, Olivier Goinard, Rachel Arditi, Ralph Richardson, Raymond Massey, Roman Kolinka, Sarah Le Picard, Solal Forte, Yves Heck

Director: Mia Hansen-Løve, Mia Hansen-Løve, William Cameron Menzies

Rating: Not Rated, PG-13

You would expect a courtroom drama to be built around damning pieces of evidence, passionate speeches, or certain social issues lending weight to the investigation. But what makes Justine Triet's Palme d'Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall so remarkable is how direct it is. Triet doesn't treat this case like a puzzle for the audience to participate in solving; instead she fashions this trial into a portrait of a family being eroded by even just the suggestion of distrust. It ultimately has far less to do with who's responsible for the death of a man, and more to do with the challenge of facing the reality that the people we love are capable of being cruel and callous to others.

Which isn't to say that Anatomy of a Fall doesn't still possess qualities that make it a great courtroom drama—doubt only continues to pile up with every new piece of information that's revealed to the audience, until we begin to interpret characters' expressions and actions in a contradictory ways. But the way Triet executes these reveals is just so skillful, choosing precisely how to let details slip and obscuring everything behind faulty memory, intentional dishonesty, or any other obstacles that usually come up during an investigation.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Alexandre Bertrand, Anne Rotger, Anne-Lise Heimburger, Antoine Bueno, Antoine Reinartz, Arthur Harari, Camille Rutherford, Christophe Devaux, Cyril Karenine, Emmanuelle Jourdan, Florent Chasseloup, Iliès Kadri, Isaac Abballah, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Jehnny Beth, Judicaël Ajorque, Kareen Guiock, Laura Balasuriya, Maud Martin, Milo Machado-Graner, Nesrine Slaoui, Nicholas Angelo, Nola Jolly, Pierre-François Garel, Saadia Bentaïeb, Sacha Wolff, Samuel Theis, Sandra Hüller, Sandrine Chastagnol, Savannah Rol, Sophie Fillières, Swann Arlaud, Wajdi Mouawad

Director: Justine Triet

Rating: R

Witty, unexpected, and thrilling, The Innocent pulls off an excellent European heist film with modern sensibilities and its stylistic mix of genres. All at once, the film is a crime film, as well as a family farce, but also a screwball romantic comedy. The genres line up with the premise perfectly, but there’s something intriguing about the way director Louis Garrel uses each genre’s tropes. Abel’s clumsy spying over his mom’s ex-convict husband and drama pupil Michel is framed through noir techniques, while his friend Clémence gleefully interrupts his efforts with witty repartee. Abel’s suspicion of Michel’s schemes ironically leads to one of his own. And when his mom’s expressive acting techniques are used in that scheme, Abel expects fake emotions, only to reveal his true feelings. With each new twist, The Innocent plays with genre expectations for unexpected but delightful results.

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Romance

Actor: Anouk Grinberg, Jean-Claude Bolle-Reddat, Laëtitia Clément, Louis Garrel, Manda Touré, Noémie Merlant, Roschdy Zem

Director: Louis Garrel

The curious link between smell and memory forms the basis of this intriguing — albeit uneven — exploration of the supernatural ties between mother and child. Eight-year-old Vicky (Sally Dramé), daughter of the unhappily married Joanne (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Jimmy (Moustapha Mbengue), has a sense of smell so fine-tuned she can identify a catalog of notes in any scent. Smells are so evocative for Vicky that they can also send her hurtling into someone’s past, like her mother’s thorny teenage history with Jimmy’s sister Julia (Swala Emati).

The film makes mostly effective use of its fascinating premise and brilliant (partly non-professional) cast. Set in the glacial Alps, the film dives under icy exteriors to find the tension smoldering between the family and their tight-knit community. Like Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman, it uses time-bending magical realism to articulate the elemental force of maternal bonds and a child’s shock at realizing their parents led a full life before them. It’s less illuminating about its central conceit, though, and some of the less fantastical elements are also underdone, coming off melodramatic in a way that clashes with its overall understatedness. Despite this, The Five Devils is a bewitching watch, particularly in its goosebump-inducing final shot.

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller

Actor: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Antonia Buresi, Daphne Patakia, Hugo Dillon, Merwan Rim, Moustapha Mbengue, Noée Abita, Patrick Bouchitey, Sally Dramé, Stéphanie Lhorset, Swala Emati

Director: Léa Mysius

This international comedy-drama in French, Greek, and Turkish is about a free-spirited Greek girl who travels to Istanbul on a mission to help her father. Once there, she meets Avril, a French woman whose plans to help Syrian refugees have backfired. Together, they embark on a music-inspired adventure to Lebos from Turkey.

Director Tony Gatlif, a Romani, Algerian-born French filmmaker, has a unique style that often verges on exaggerations. It borders on a madcap comedy and has perfect production value, although the story might be difficult to tolerate for non-fans.

Still, if you like travel dramas, or more specifically music-travel dramas, especially in a time where the countries in the film are completely inaccessible, this will do the trick.

Genre: Drama, Music

Actor: Daphne Patakia, Eleftheria Komi, Kimon Kouris, Maryne Cayon, Seray Yalçin, Simon Abkarian, Yannis Bostantzoglou

Director: Tony Gatlif

The opening titles of this French procedural drama explicitly tell us that the crime it chronicles will go unsolved, confessing that it’s about one of the approximately 160 murder cases that police don’t crack each year. An ambitious and intriguing opener — suggesting that, in the absence of a clean resolution, the film will nonetheless offer us something equally compelling, as Zodiac does. 

In following the investigation of the brutal murder of 21-year-old Clara (Lula Cotton-Frapier) — for which the police interrogate various of her exes, all misogynistic potential murderers in their own ways — the film seeks to explore the society-wide “problem between men and women” that has given the police its surplus of suspects. Alas, it’s much more interested in the psychological impact cold cases have on policemen like frustrated captain Yohan (Bastien Bouillon). There’s something deeply ironic about making a movie about the systemic dehumanization of women just to center male perspectives, especially when their only insight into the epidemic of toxic masculinity is Yohan’s clunky “We can’t find the murderer because all men killed Clara.” The film’s treatment of the victim herself — incurious and downright gratuitous in the depiction of her murder — cements it as a shallow, un-self-aware, and failed attempt to reckon with a subject that deserved its full focus.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Anouk Grinberg, Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Camille Rutherford, Charline Paul, David Murgia, Johann Dionnet, Jules Porier, Julien Frison, Lula Cotton-Frapier, Marc Bodnar, Matthieu Rozé, Mouna Soualem, Nicolas Jouhet, Paul Jeanson, Pauline Serieys, Pierre Lottin, Théo Cholbi, Thibaut Évrard

Director: Dominik Moll