Petite maman is about 8-year-old Nelly’s (Joséphine Sanz) method of coping with a traumatic process. After the death of her grandmother (Margot Abascal), Nelly accompanies her mother’s (Nina Meurisse) mourning process, which is just beginning to fall into darkness, as she spends a few days coming to the house where her mother grew up and collecting the remaining items. This house, where her grandmother’s belongings will be collected and returned to their home according to the plan and her mother’s childhood passes, turns into a place for Nelly, built with old memories that do not belong to her, but will give her a new world. Sciamma, an expert in telling growth stories, seems to focus on a little girl in Petite maman, but she is constructing a multi-layered, winding, playful and somewhat uncanny time and place where adults swim in the same waters as children.