Villejuif, Bobigny, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, on the outskirts of the Parisian agglomeration: all familiar names, often synonymous with unrest. Names that, in French, have become the incarnation of the «banlieue» (suburb) and its negative connotations. Places so different to anything else that they might as well be at the far side of the globe. Somewhere between documentary and fiction, La vie ailleurs charts the boyhood memories of a man, as he recalls his life spent in a tower block on a housing estate, his dreams of escape to the nearby city, and his father when he arrived from Algeria and had to overcome homesickness so he could start a new life.