No Dogs or Italians Allowed

Once upon a time, at the end of the 19th century, there was the small village of Ughettera in the shadow of Mount Viso in Northern Italy. Director’s grandfather Luigi was one of the 11 children of the Ughetto family. They all slept in the same stable, hardly ever ate meat and for lack of work, had to migrate painfully through the passes to France or Switzerland when winter came. It was a miserable existence of sacrifices that was shaken by the drama of wars, accidents, the Spanish flu and the failure to leave for America. But there was also the love of Cesira and Luigi, the wakes, the births, the children who grew up. Conceived as a fictional dialogue with the director’s grandmother Cesira, to whom he asks everything he would have liked to know, this film is a testimony to the experiences of these generations of Italian migrants and a tribute to their courage.

Alain Ughetto

Born in France, Alain Ughetto is a seasoned animator and documentary filmmaker. He inherited from his father and grandfather a pronounced taste for DIY that he infuses into his cinema through animation, a way to explore the intimate. In 1985, he was awarded the César for Best Animated Short Film for La Boule. In 2013, he directed Jasmine, a love story in Tehran at the end of the 1970s. His feature-length anidoc No Dogs or Italians Allowed, premiered in the competition at Annecy.