Few filmmakers are telling stories as intimate and human as Céline Sciamma. Following her hugely acclaimed masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire in 2019, the French filmmaker switches gears to tell a story of friendship and grief through the lens of two 8-year-old girls with the achingly brilliant Petite Maman.
Many years in the works, the film fully came together and was subsequently fast-tracked due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the world locked down and separated from their loved ones, Sciamma’s vision found a new lease of life and the urgency of its themes fuelled the production on her fifth feature. The story – a fun twist on the time-travel genre – brings together 8-year-olds Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) and Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) in the most unexpected of circumstances.
Here’s the official synopsis:
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.
Ahead of the film’s UK release on November 19th, I got to sit down with Sciamma to discuss the challenges of making a film in lockdown, what it was like working with younger actors, and just why Petite Maman is one of the year’s best and most relevant pieces of cinemas yet.
You can watch the interview in full below:
