My Little Princess [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - France ]

Nice movie a little disturbing if your a parent, French with English sub tittles ,young daughter who lives with her grandmother whose mother lives upstairs ,a photographer and artist decides to photograph her daughter ,I'll leave you to decide if you want to see this movie I was curious and if you can have a open mind and keep saying it's only a movie fiction .

Well done Ms.Ionesca.... Looking forward to seeing more of your work..

PERFECT....Living in the USA, this movie opened my eyes to cinema in other countries.

This film makes you wonder how a mother could do that to her own child. Entertaining enough

This movie has been available for some time in Europe on DVD, but hard to find at present in the US. The director of this work is Eva Ionescu, who's movies as a young actress I am a fan of. The movie stars Anamaria Vartolomei as the 12-year-old Violetta, daughter of a single mother who is an up and coming professional photographer and of whom she has a somewhat odd and distant relationship. I believe this is Anamaria's debut of a major movie, and my first comment is that she is a strikingly beautiful young girl, but which fits her story role perfectly. The girl lives in a downstairs flat with her grandmother, but her mother lives privately in upstairs quarters where the Grandmother is forbidden, and apparently the girl is seldom invited. A man friend gives the mother a camera and she subsequently declares herself an artistic photographer, turns her flat into a studio, and begans making portaits of provocative women, especially nude. In a distorted view of love for Violetta, she feels that exposing her to the public world of photographic art as a model will reclaim the relationship with her daughter she never seem to have. She invites Violetta to pose for photographs, teaches her to use makeup, buys her very adult styles of clothing, and over time has her posing in more and more sexually suggestive ways. In time, Violetta is posing nude (although the audience never sees actual nudity) at the insistance of her mother. The mother's work is finally recognized by art critics and she is invited to show it in galleries where she receives good acclaim, especially for the photos of Violetta that were included in the display. Now "exposed" to public recognition, Violetta is teased by her classmates and certain critical circles are calling her photos child pornographic. The last straw for violetta comes when she and her mother are invited to the home of a wealthy man in England who hires the mother to come and do a series of private photographs. Violetta doesn't realize it but she is to be the centerpiece of the man's erotic fantasies. She at first agrees to pose with the man, wearing exotic dress, but during the photo session her mother insists that she strip naked. At this point, Violetta refuses and rebels against any more photographs ever, says she hates her mother, and runs out. By this time authorities are considering prosecuting the mother for child abuse and social services has stepped in to mediate and investigate the true nature of the relationship. The grandmother has also passed away and Violetta is left with the choice of living solely with her mother or being removed to a home for children. Needless to say, the mother/daughter relationship is now ruined though mother never stops insisting that her motives are only about loving Violetta. This movie is worth getting ahold of to see, and forces you to evaluate the balance between artistic freedom vs. morality. Ultimately the viewer has to feel some pity for Violetta who is caught in the emotional middle of all the conflicts involved in the story and is forced in to adult choices that cheat her out of childhood innocence and security. On top of a story that captivates, the directing and acting, especially by young Anamarie, is overall excellent.