For the second entry in our ongoing Le Petit Cinéma Club series, we’re excited to present a rediscovered gem about a young boy and his best friend, a loving and adventurous camel.

This week’s selection is Yannick Bellon’s Zaa, Petit Chameau blanc, a wondrous short from the French filmmaker who was the subject of a recent retrospective at L’Alliance New York. Filmed in Tunisia in 1960 and revolving around a white camel, the film sees Bellon pair her directorial finesse with a whimsy that rarely appears in the rest of her work.

Bellon begins her film with Aidi, a 10-year-old boy who becomes bereft when his pet camel Zaa is sold off to a trader. The rest of the runtime is dedicated to Zaa’s efforts to return to Aidi and all of his misadventures along the way — a run-in with a donkey, a visit to some ancient ruins, and a trip on a magic carpet. Throughout, Bellon treats us to beautiful panoramic vistas of the Tunisian landscape, focusing on how the sun shines across desert expanses and shimmering oases.

“For me, making films is about expressing emotions, being at the heart of life, of multiple lives.” YANNICK BELLON

As is to be expected with Bellon, it’s her focus on emotion and interpersonal connection (between children, as well as people and animals) that differentiates Zaa from your average children’s film. It’s her decision to include a scene of Aidi in tears over Zaa, or a shot of the lead camel staring out into space, as though scanning his environs for Aidi, that grounds her fairytale narrative in the real emotions that define everyday people; chiefly, the fear of growing apart and the joy of reuniting.

Yannick Bellon was born in Biarritz, France, in 1924. She was the daughter of a famous photographer and briefly studied filmmaking at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques. From 1949 to 1970, she directed a series of short films about authors, workers, and cities. Two years later, she founded her own production company, Les Films de l’Équinoxe, and made a number of daring feature films (Quelque part, quelqu’un, 1972; L’Amour violé, 1978; La Triche,1984) that tackled the polemical issues of her time — gentrification, divorce, sexual assault, and homosexuality.

This screening was made possible thanks to L’Alliance New York, which hosts monthly family screenings and is now gearing up to present Animation First, the biggest animation festival in the United States.

Text written by Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer. Special thanks to L’Alliance New York and L’Agence du court métrage. An additional note of gratitude to Orfeo Tagiuri, who contributed the wonderful animated introduction that precedes each film in the series.