Louise Mauroy-Panzani, Ilça Moreno Zego, Abnara Gomes Varela
Cléo (six-year-old Louise Mauroy-Panzani) lives with her widower Dad Arnaud (Arnaud Rebotini) and her nanny Gloria (Ilça Moreno Zego) in Paris. She loves her father, but Gloria is the emotional centre of her world, and when Gloria must return to her home in Cape Verde to attend to her own family, she’s heartbroken – and desperate to be reunited.
Marie Amachoukeli’s solo directorial debut (she previously co-directed the Camera d’Or-winning Party Girl) is an acutely affecting drama powered by a really astounding child actor. Full of personality with her thick glasses and a tangle of curls, Mauroy-Panzani’s intricate performance is a window back into the roiling intensity of a small child’s emotions, instincts, and inherently solipsistic view of the world. A film that works both as a simple heartfelt drama and as a clear allegory (and critique) of colonialism, Ama Gloria is a beautifully drawn study of a young girl on a steep learning curve about the broader contexts of her, and other people’s worlds.
