A sensitive, heartrending portrait of what it feels like to grow up different, Céline Sciamma’s beautifully observed coming-of-age tale aches tenderly with the tangled confusion of childhood. When ten-year-old Laure’s family moves to a new neighborhood during the summer, the gender-nonconforming preteen (played by the impressively naturalistic Zoé Héran) takes the opportunity to present as Mickäel to the neighborhood kids—testing the waters of a new identity that neither friends nor family quite understand. Sciamma’s warmly empathetic tone is perfectly complemented by the soft-lit impressionism of Crystel Fournier’s glowing cinematography. Print courtesy of the Institut Français.

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