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Writer-director Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman departs from the filmmaker’s last two feature-length directorial efforts in its comparative modesty. With none of the overt social messaging of Girlhood or the grand romance of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Sciamma’s precisely composed images and muted dialogue serve a more intimate story about the longing to connect with one’s mother outside the bounds of the parent-offspring relationship.

Petite Maman indulges the same kind of fantasy as Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future, answering the question of what it would be like to meet our parents at our own age—though it’s not overly concerned with temporal paradoxes or a high-stakes race to ensure one’s genesis. Rather, Sciamma’s film is contemplative and cool almost to a fault, emphasizing the simple acts of connecting with and parting from people we care about, and the rueful inevitability of time’s passing.

The leaves are withering, the air is turning crisp, and film festival season is well underway — which means even more foreign-language movies to receive raves on the fall awards circuit before getting promptly buried on a streamer. But don't let that happen to "Athena," a staggering French drama that is in danger of falling into the Netflix abyss, crowded out by your "Gray Men" or "Kissing Booth's." Or check out one of last year's forgotten festival darlings in Céline Sciamma's "Petite Maman." And because spooky season is now here, we have a horror anime classic making their streaming debuts, alongside a cyberpunk anime classic. Plus, "Little Women," but make it crime?

Let's fire up those subtitles and get streaming.

Athena – Netflix

Country: France

Genre: Action drama

Director: Romain Gavras

Cast: Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, Alexis Manenti.

"Athena" is a Molotov cocktail of a movie: incendiary,...

There are few things in contemporary cinema as pleasurable as witnessing Céline Sciamma’s fascination with childhood. Although she doesn’t technically make films for children (although she did co-write the screenplay for My Life as a Courgette) her stories often are told from their point of view. Whether it’s young Parisian women trying to find their place in the world in Girlhood, or the child in Tomboy discovering there is more to gender than they’ve been asked to believe, Sciamma’s way of seeing the world negotiates who we were and what we can become with utter wonder. Even at the end of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, it’s the silent gaze of a child in a painting that ultimately highlights the film’s unrelenting power.

In Petite Maman, Sciamma explores the meaning of grief and how loss can strangely lead to wondrous beginnings. Not that her films,...

There is what you might call a “spoiler” in the title of Céline Sciamma’s new movie, a key to unlocking her look at childhood that’s hiding in plain sight. The French filmmaker’s follow-up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire begins not with love, but with death: An eight-year-old named Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) has just lost her elderly grandmother. Her mom (Nina Meurisse) is packing up everything in the house she grew up in, located on the edge of a forest. Dad (Stéphane Varupenne) is helping out the best he can.

Petite Maman (Little Mom) Neon Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net, linked from Rotten Tomatoes by Harvey Karten Director: Céline Sciamma Screenwriter: Céline Scimma Cast: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 4/7/22 Opens: April 22, 2022 How much do you know about your parents’ childhoods? Are you […]

The post Petite Maman (Little Mom) Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"Grab a tissue and prepare your heart." Neon has revealed an official US trailer for Petite Maman, the beloved film from Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma. This first premiered at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival last year, and played at the New York Film Festival and other fests. The title translates to Little Mom, which is a reference to the film's plot and what happens with a young girl. Nelly has just lost her grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother's childhood home. One day her mother disappears without explanation. She explores the house and the surrounding woods, and meets another girl her exact same age. The film stars Joséphine Sanz + Gabrielle Sanz, with Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, and Margot Abascal. It's only 72 minutes long, but it's a really lovely film that you will leave you happy no matter what. After all this time,...

Céline Sciamma’s beautiful fairytale about a girl who meets her mother as a child in the woods is an artistic masterstroke

Best films of 2021: the listMore on the best culture of 2021

Céline Sciamma’s beautiful fairytale reverie is occasioned by the dual mysteries of memory and the future: simple, elegant and very moving. Joséphine Sanz plays Nelly, the eight-year-old daughter of Marion (Nina Meurisse); Marion’s mother has just died in a care home. Marion and her partner (Stéphane Varupenne) take Nelly on a difficult journey to her late mother’s home, where she grew up, and the memories come flooding back – particularly that of a secret hut she built in the woods adjoining the house. Marion is overwhelmed with grief and leaves Nelly alone with her dad.

Playing in the woods she comes across what appears to be a half-finished hut in a clearing. A girl waves happily to her,...

"I've made a friend, I think." Mubi in the UK has revealed another official UK trailer for the beloved film Petite Maman, the latest feature from Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma. This initially premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, and will play at the New York Film Festival next. The title translates to Little Mom, which is a reference to the film's plot and what happens with a young girl who meets another young girl in the woods one day. Nelly has just lost her grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother's childhood home. One day her mother disappears without explanation. She explores the house and the surrounding woods, and meets another girl her exact same age. Petite Maman stars Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz, with Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, and Margot Abascal. It's only 72 minutes long, but there's so much to this film.

Time to meet Nelly and Marion... Pyramide Films in France has unveiled the first official trailer for the film Petite Maman, the latest from Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma. The title translates directly to Little Mom, which is a reference to the film's plot and what happens with a young girl who meets another young girl in the woods one day. Nelly has just lost her grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother's childhood home. One day her mother disappears without explanation. She explores the house and the surrounding woods, and meets a girl her same age building a treehouse. Petite Maman stars Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz, with Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, and Margot Abascal. This just premiered a few months ago at the Berlin Film Festival, and it's opening in France this June, though there's still no US opening set yet.

Following up her universally acclaimed Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma was able to get a film off the ground and completed during the pandemic. Petite Maman, starring Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Stéphane Varupenne, Nina Meurisse, and Margo Abascal, follows a young girl who has just lost her grandmother, then discovers a girl her own age in the woods. Following a Berlinale premiere, the film will arrive in France next month and the first international trailer has landed. Neon will also reteam with the director for a U.S. release, but a date hasn’t been confirmed yet.

Orla Smith said in our Berlinale review, “After the ambitious and wildly popular Portrait of a Lady on Fire shot Céline Sciamma into the arthouse stratosphere, she has returned with her fifth feature, Petite Maman, a warm and contained film whose scale is more akin to Tomboy. The mighty hype...

Celine Sciamma’s Berlinale competition title “Petite Maman” has been sold by MK2 Films around the world with some bidding wars in multiple territories.

The critically acclaimed film, which marks Sciamma’s follow-up to “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” has been sold to Alamode (Germany), Culture (Japan), Challan (South Korea) Sun (Latin America), Avalon (Spain), Madman (Australia/New Zealand), Red Cape (Israel), Cinéart (Benelux), Cineworx (Switzerland), Angel (Denmark), Folkets Bio (Sweden), Arthaus (Norway), Swallow Wings (Taiwan), Russian World Vision (Cis), New Horizons (Poland), Weirdwave (Greece), Midas (Portugal) and Demiurg (Ex-Yugoslavia).

“Petite Maman” was bought by Neon for North America and Mubi for the U.K. and Turkey during the virtual Berlin Film Festival. MK2 Films is currently negotiating further sales.

Described as a chamber piece, a ghost story and a fairy tale, “Petite Maman” follows Nelly, an 8-year-old girl who has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping...

Petite Maman had its world premiere at last week’s online Berlin Film Festival.

Mubi has acquired all UK-Ireland rights to Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman, which had its world premiere at last week’s online Berlin Film Festival.

The distributor has also acquired rights on the film for Turkey, in deals done with international sales agent mk2.

The film will be released theatrically in all territories, Mubi has confirmed to Screen.

Petite Maman centres on eight-year-old Nelly, who has just lost her grandmother and is helping clean out her mother’s childhood home, when she strikes up a relationship...

Arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi has acquired all rights for Céline Sciamma’s well-received Berlin Film Festival title Petite Maman for the UK, Ireland and Turkey.

Sciamma’s follow-up to Cannes hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire, tells the story of 8-year-old Nelly who has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mother, Marion, used to play and built the treehouse she’s heard so much about. One day her mother abruptly leaves and Nelly meets a girl her own age, named Marion, in the woods building a treehouse.

You can check out review for the film here.

Written and directed by festival favourite Sciamma, the film was shot by cinematographer Claire Mathon, Sciamma’s frequent collaborator, and produced by Bénédicte Couvreur of Lilies Films.

Cast includes Gabrielle Sanz,...

Anyone expecting another sweeping and passionate period piece from the director of “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” should begin recalibrating their expectations for Céline Sciamma’s follow-up, “Petite Maman.”

Intimately focused on a handful of characters, with a single fantastical event setting up its direct narrative through-line, this feature plays like a novella, or a short film, or both — it’s the kind of piece that was once the bread-and-butter of PBS’ “American Playhouse” anthology series. And while “Petite Maman” is a vastly different from than “Portrait,” it furthers writer-director Sciamma’s reputation as a storyteller with a keen understanding of character and human emotion.

The film opens with young Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) bidding farewell to the residents of a nursing home where her namesake grandmother has just died. This passing is devastating for Nelly’s mother, Marion (Nina Meurisse), a woman given to moments of melancholy even under normal circumstances.

After her recent dazzling foray into historical drama, with the magnificent Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma returns to the theme of childhood, which she last dealt with in Tomboy. However, to say that she returns to the present with Petite Maman would be misleading. And before you read any further, be warned that this is a film almost impossible to write about without a few spoilers.

The film begins with an end – the end of a life – and the first words we hear repeated are ‘Au revoir’ as our 8-year-old heroine Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) goes from room to room in an old people’s home to salute the inhabitants one last time. Nelly is with her parents, who are packing up her dead maternal grandmother’s belongings. Then it’s off to granny’s actual home to empty that out and then depart. There is a charming...

After the ambitious and wildly popular Portrait of a Lady on Fire shot Céline Sciamma into the arthouse stratosphere, she has returned with her fifth feature, Petite Maman, a warm and contained film whose scale is more akin to Tomboy. The mighty hype from Sciamma fans anticipating the film’s Berlinale premiere may be too much to bear for this delicate, low-key film. Of course it’s as impeccably directed and carefully structured as we’ve come to expect from Sciamma. But it’s more of a slow simmer than Portrait’s fiery blaze. Beware instantaneous hot takes: this is a modest work, one to sit with and chew over, one to look back on fondly after letting it percolate.

With Petite Maman, Sciamma returns to the topic of her first three features—childhood—now with one eye on the adult characters. We meet eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) in the hospital,...

Neon has scooped up North American rights to Céline Sciamma’s sixth feature directorial Petite Maman, bringing the Oscar-winning film studio back in business with the French filmmaker behind 2019’s award-winning pic Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Already there is great word of mouth brewing from critics on Sciamma’s new title out of its world premiere at the Berlinale.

The drama stars sisters Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz, with Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne and Margot Abascal. In Pete Maman, 8-year-old Nelly has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mom, Marion, used to play and built the treehouse she’s heard so much about. One day her mother abruptly leaves. That’s when Nelly meets a girl her own age in the woods building a treehouse. Her name is Marion.

Neon has acquired North American rights to Céline Sciamma’s latest feature, “Petite Maman,” following its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

The sale reunites Sciamma with Neon, the New York-based independent studio that released her acclaimed drama “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

Written and directed by Sciamma, “Petite Maman” follows 8-year-old Nelly, who loses her beloved grandmother and goes to help her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mom, Marion, used to play and build the treehouse she’s heard so much about. One day, her mother abruptly leaves. That’s when Nelly meets a girl her own age in the woods building a treehouse. Her name is Marion.

It stars sisters Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, as well as Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne and Margot Abascal.

Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge praised the film,...

Sisters Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz star.

Neon is reuniting with Celine Sciamma and has acquired North American rights from mk2 to Berlin competition selection Petite Maman.

Sisters Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz star in the drama about a young child mourning the loss of her grandmother who encounters a girl of her age in the woods.

‘Petite Maman’: Berlin Review

Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne and Margot Abascal round out the key cast. Bénédicte Couvreur of Lilies Films produced.

Jeff Deutchman negotiated the deal for Neon with Fionnuala Jamison of mk2 who are handling international sales.

Neon released Sciamma...

Eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) sits in the backseat of her mother’s car outside of the nursing home where her beloved grandmother has just died, and watches through the window as her young parents (Nina Meurisse and Stéphane Varupenne) share a tender embrace. The half-quizzical look on Nelly’s face suggests that she hasn’t seen them hug in a while — that perhaps this moment is doubly charged. She wonders what they mean to each other, and what it feels like to lose someone forever, and whether her mother ever sat alone in a car on a gray fall afternoon and watched as her mother was consoled over her mother’s death. Nelly understands that her mom didn’t become 31 without being eight along the way, but why is that so hard to imagine? It’s like looking at a bird and trying to picture when it was a dinosaur.

“Give me a child until he is 7, and I will show you the man,” proposed Aristotle, to which fiercely feminist French director Céline Sciamma might add, “Give me a woman, and I will show you the free, unbroken spirit she still was at age 8.”

Sciamma, who went from being a queer cult favorite (for such bracingly free indies as “Tomboy” and “Water Lilies”) to an internationally respected auteur with 2019’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” follows up that barrier-breaking achievement with the slight but hardly insignificant “Petite Maman.” Made during fall 2020 while the pandemic still severely limited film production, this 72-minute sketch looks at the connection between an 8-year-old girl, Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), and her mother, Marion (Nina Meurisse), through a simple leap of imagination — one that necessitates a basic spoiler to meaningfully discuss, so be warned if you’d rather save that surprise for the screen.

Nelly is...

After working together on the domestic release of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Neon has acquired the North American rights to Celine Sciamma’s Petite Maman.

Petite Maman, which premiered at Berlinale, is a time travel story that follows 8-year-old Nelly, who has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out the childhood home of her mother, Marion. While exploring the surrounding woods, she meets a girl her own age, who looks exactly like her and is named Marion.

Sisters Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz star in the feature, with Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne and Margot Abascal.

Bénédicte Couvreur ...

After working together on the domestic release of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Neon has acquired the North American rights to Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman.

Petite Maman, which premiered at Berlinale, is a time-travel story that follows 8-year-old Nelly, who has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out the childhood home of her mother, Marion. While exploring the surrounding woods, she meets a girl her own age, who looks exactly like her and is named Marion.

Sisters Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz star in the feature, with Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne and Margot Abascal.

Bénédicte Couvreur prodcued ...

A girl meets her mother as a child in the woods in a moving jewel of a film about memory, friendship and kin

Céline Sciamma’s beautiful fairytale reverie is occasioned by the dual mysteries of memory and the future: simple, elegant and very moving. I fell instantly under its spell, and found myself thinking of classic English tales such as Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, or The Child in Time by Ian McEwan. And there is an extra-textual pleasure in wondering exactly what its child stars thought about it during filming – and what they think about it now.

Joséphine Sanz plays Nelly, the eight-year-old daughter of Marion (Nina Meurisse). The latter is under enormous stress. Marion’s mother has just died in a care home, from long-term complications of a hereditary bone disorder, which Marion herself had to avoid with a painful operation when she was about Nelly’s age.

One of the best surprises of the Berlinale 2021 lineup is that the newest film from Céline Sciamma––marking her fifth feature and first since her widely acclaimed Portrait of a Lady on Fire––is completed after shooting only a few months ago. Details have been sparse when it came to Petite Maman, but now the festival has unveiled a full synopsis, while also revealing a runtime of only 72 minutes.

Starring Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, and Margot Abascal, the film will find Sciamma returning to themes of adolescence, which she explored in different facets in Water Lillies, Tomboy, and Girlhood. Check out the synopsis below via Berlinale’s official site.

Eight-year-old Nelly has just lost her beloved grandmother and is helping her parents clean out her mother’s childhood home. She explores the house and the surrounding woods where her mum, Marion, used to play and where...