Eng Ama Gloria

Cléo, a bundle of personality under a tangle of hair and pair of thick glasses, lives in Paris with her affable widower Dad, Arnaud (Arnaud Rebotini), but is raised mostly by her beloved Cape Verdean nanny Gloria (Ilça Moreno Zego). Their relationship is close as a goodnight kiss, and obviously mutually adoring — witness the exchange of incandescent smiles when Cléo sees Gloria waiting at the school gates. So it’s a heavy blow to both when Gloria has to return to Cape Verde following the death of her mother. Gloria’s own daughter Fernanda (Abnara Gomes Varela) is already a young woman, and pregnant with her first child. But her son César (Fredy Gomes Tavares) is still a kid, and now needs the motherly supervision that Gloria has spent many years lavishing on Cléo.

‘A debut made dazzling by an astonishingly intricate performance from its six-year-old star,’ aldus Variety.