Ari

Directed by Léonor Serraille
France
2025
88 mins

Synopsis

In this intimate and witty portrait of urban loneliness and young male ennui, a teacher must couch-surf his way through life after impulsively quitting his job. Berlinale 2025.

The third film from Camera d’Or-winner Léonor Serraille (Montparnasse Bienvenue) follows primary school teacher Ari (the magnetic Andranic Manet), left adrift after a nervous breakdown in class. Booted out of the family home by his long-suffering dad, who wants his son to step up for once, Ari roams the streets of Lille, looking for connection with old friends, exes and strangers. Elliptical and energetic with dashes of both Éric Rohmer and John Cassavetes, Serraille’s richly observed character piece reveals that Ari’s hardly the only one not doing well in this alienating modern world. Moments of nihilism are tempered by the film’s humour and empathetic worldview, as refracted by a deeply vulnerable performance from Manet.

Limited seats are available for patrons requiring access for wheelchairs, low vision and hearing loop. Please contact our ticketing team directly on 1300 733 733 or tickets@sff.org.au to complete your booking.

If young men have never exactly been sidelined in the movies, they’re rarely examined with this degree of tenderness: Ari regards its subject’s many exposed vulnerabilities and self-sabotaging errors with a mixture of candor and protectiveness.
Guy Lodge, Variety

Tickets

Sat 14 June 2025, 3:45pm
Hayden Orpheum - Cinema 2
WheelchairSubtitled
Sun 15 June 2025, 5:45pm
Palace Central - Cinema 1
WheelchairSubtitledAssisted Listening
  • Program Strand
  • Year
    2025
  • Classification
    Unclassified 15+
  • Country
    France, Belgium
  • Language
    In French with English subtitles
  • Director
    Léonor Serraille
  • Producer
    Sandra Da Fonseca, Grégoire Debailly
  • Cast
    Andranic Manet, Pascal Rénéric, Théo Delezenne
  • Screenwriter
    Léonor Serraille
  • Cinematographer
    Sébastien Buchmann
  • Editor
    Clémence Carré
  • Genre
  • Premiere
    Australian Premiere
  • Company Credits
    World Sales: Be For Films
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