Eight-year-old Nelly [Josephine Sanz] is adjusting to the passing of her grandmother and is left to emotionally fend for herself while her grieving mother and gently preoccupied father clean out the late matriarch’s rustic home. Venturing out into the surrounding forest, she meets same-age Marion [Gabrielle Sanz] constructing a tree house, and soon strikes up an intimate friendship with this mysterious yet somehow very familiar girl. Their forest encounters raise lots of questions but as the title translates literally as “Little Mom”, we are provided a bit of a clue. One of the pleasures of this film is the way it casually introduces a series of strange events as if there were nothing strange about them at all.
Petit Mamon is a delicate tale of childhood and an intergenerational connection that crosses through time. – SIGHT AND SOUND