Petite Maman. 2021. France. Written and directed by Céline Sciamma. With Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse. In French; English subtitles. 72 min.
Tickets for in-person films are available to members at the Explore category and above beginning two weeks before each screening. Additional tickets will be released, to members as well as the general public, one week before each screening.
Following 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, director Celine Sciamma returns to the subject at the heart of her body of work: the emotional lives of young people. Eight-year-old Nelly mourns the loss of her cherished grandmother, spending a weekend at her house clearing it out with her parents. When her grieving mother departs suddenly, Nelly meets a neighbor just her age, and they form a profound bond. The friendship takes on the beguiling shape of something akin to a Hayao Miyazaki story, collapsing past and present but somehow always staying rooted in this world. Sciamma draws out the pure magic of cinematic storytelling on her smallest scale yet, offering a blissful meditation on memory and possibility, past and future, self and family.