It’s tempting to read a colonial narrative in Cléo’s reluctant surrender of the only maternal figure she has ever known. But Louise Mauroy-Panzani’s uncanny performance ensures we’re solely fixated on the child’s psychodrama.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 13, 2024

Kleenex at the ready for this merciless French drama that combines a cute child, a beloved nanny, and a love too pure and sweet for this lousy world.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 25, 2024

One of the year’s most hypnotic performances nestles inside this seemingly modest French-language coming-of-age drama.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 17, 2024

The mixed media technique cuts through the film’s naturalism to bring forth something felt and ineffable, akin to the rich, vivid worlds within children’s imaginations, as well as the haziness with which we recall childhood memories.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 14, 2024

In Marie Amachoukeli’s Àma Gloria there’s a remarkable performance by a child actor, Louise Mauroy-Panzani. So key is her contribution that It’s fair to say the director couldn’t have delivered the film she had planned without her.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 14, 2024

Àma Gloria is a small-scale film, barely over 80 minutes, but it leaves an almighty impression. Everything is so unforced and effortlessly convincing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 12, 2024

Written and directed from and for the heart, this story exudes infinite humanity and tenderness... [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 27, 2024

A sweet melodrama with a girl in the Cape Verde sun. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 24, 2024

Anchored by an extraordinary performance by 6-year-old Louise Mauroy-Panzani, this French slice-of-life drama takes an approach that focusses on the characters' feelings rather than any straightforward plot structure.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 23, 2024

Immersive and deeply touching thanks to Amachoukeli-Barsacq’s capable direction + the convincing performances of the two leads. Mauroy-Panzani as six-year-old Cléo is a revelation.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 15, 2024

Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq’s Àma Gloria is a touching, sentimental film about the bond between a young French girl, Cléo (Louise Mauroy-Panzani), and her nanny from Cape Verde, Gloria (Ilça Morena).

| Mar 22, 2024

A quietly reflective film about the relationships that ground us and the importance of family, blood related or not.

| Mar 5, 2024

The love story at the center of Àma Gloria feels more tragic than any tale of romance.

| Original Score: B | Jan 31, 2024

Marie Amachoukeli’s nuanced feature focuses on the evolving relationship between a child and her nanny... Sure, the story has been told before, but not in this manner.

| Jan 30, 2024

The tears it generates are real, and there’s nothing better than genuine feeling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 25, 2024

Àma Gloria is a sentimental and kind film, never maudlin or overdramatic. Marie Amachoukeli’s sophomore feature is a masterclass in compassion for all the characters who inhabit it. Like the love between Cléo and Gloria, it is boundless.

| Original Score: A+ | Sep 6, 2023

Àma Gloria tells a familiar story from a different perspective, with warmth and honesty...Cléo is vividly portrayed by Louise Mauroy-Panzani, whose eloquent gaze and body language convey the intricate, inner world of a child’s thoughts and feelings.

| Jul 22, 2023

Rather than bank on showy workmanship and sweeping melodrama... Ama Gloria rests on Mauroy-Panzani and Moreno Zego’s shoulders, their strikingly layered performances the kind that can only come from letting an actor, or two, simply breathe.

| May 31, 2023

The considerable power of Ama Gloria lies not in its take on colonial conscience, nor even in its insights into the complex economical and emotional dynamics of the child-nanny bond. It is in its unmatched portrait of one brave little heart.

| May 20, 2023

This is a remarkable, heartbreaker feel-good piece of cinema.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 17, 2023