NZIFF: Little Amélie or the Character of Rain

Amélie loves exploring everything her world has to offer, guided by her friend, Nishio-san, but everything changes when, on her third birthday, an event changes the course of her life forever.

A nominee for Best Animated Feature at the 2026 Academy Awards, the film opens with Amélie, a young Belgian girl living in Japan in the late 1960s. She isn't exactly enamoured with the world so far... that is, until her grandmother rouses in Amélie a lust for life's pleasures through the exquisite delight of white chocolate. Emerging from a vegetative state, Amélie forms a close bond with her family's housekeeper, Nishio-san, who provides Amélie with an intergenerational, multicultural appreciation of existing in the moment. However, Amélie quickly learns that life is not without its tribulations - her brother is nothing but a menace, and her family's landlady detests her Western tenants due to allied bombings during the war.

Based on Amélie Nothomb's autobiographical novel, every frame captures the wonder and tranquility of a child's inner awe and the overwhelming turmoil when our confounding world becomes too much for a mere two-and-a-half-year-old. In this tender coming-of-age animation, Amélie learns that while there may be pain in our past, there is joy in remembering and making new memories.

Little Amélie's big emotions are sure to resonate with the young and young at heart in this whimsical tale about the fleeting innocence of childhood.

Phone: 06 835 7781

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