Her beloved nanny having rushed back to Cape Verde, Cléo, a 6-year-old girl, obtains permission to spend the summer with Gloria and her family. The reunion with this courageous mother will be both joyful… and heartbreaking.
Cinema is the childhood of art, they say. Of Cuervos shouted, of Saura, to 400 shots, from Truffault, through AND, of Spielberg, films starring children (or young teenagers) often strike a chord in the hearts of adults.
This is the case with Ama Gloriaby Marie Amachoukeli (Party Girl), presented at the opening of Critics’ Week at the last Cannes Film Festival. After short films and collective works, the French director and screenwriter signs here her first solo feature film at the age of 44. The result is a beautiful, touching and delicate little film.
Cléo, a 6-year-old girl who lost her mother to cancer, lives alone with her father in the Paris suburbs. But she has a nanny, of Cape Verdean origin, who takes care of her every day. Upon learning of the death of her elderly mother, Gloria must urgently return to Cape Verde, to her own children. Much to Cléo’s misfortune. However, with her father’s permission, the little girl will spend a summer with Gloria’s family in Cape Verde.
Ama Gloria is therefore a learning story of a child with an immense need for love. The filmmaker was inspired by her own childhood: a nanny raised her until she was 6 years old, before suddenly returning to her country to be with her family. She also dedicates her film to him.
The entire film is shot in tight shots, hand-held camera. The scenes are interspersed with animated sequences, with colorful drawings reflecting Cléo’s subconscious. If the production, with this bias of following Cléo over the shoulder, can annoy us at times, the luminous performance of the protagonists, two non-professional actresses, commands admiration.
Very well directed, Louise Mauroy-Panzani (who was five and a half years old at the time of filming) bursts onto the screen in the role of Cléo. We wonder where the young actress will draw all her raw emotions. Ilça Moreno Zego, of Cape Verdean origin, is also magnificent and authentic. The calm and empathy of her character as a courageous mother recall the social role of women in the transmission of family love. For unexplained reasons, men are absent or elusive in this film; both in France and in Cape Verde.
The film begins with an eye exam. Cléo, very nearsighted, needs a new pair of glasses. However, his myopia will become somewhat the common thread ofAma Gloria. Initially, as a survival mechanism to fill the absence of her missing mother, Cléo sees love only as something selfish and exclusive. However, she will discover that happiness is also shared. With the eyes of the heart.
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Drama
Ama Gloria
Marie Amachoukeli
Louise Mauroy-Panzani, Ilça Moreno Zego, Arnaud Rebotini
1:24 a.m.