Arco (PG)

Illustrator Ugo Bienvenu's debut feature tells a story of unexpected friendship and the fate of a world impacted by climate change.

This gorgeous animation follows 10-year-old Arco (Juliano Krue Valdi) from the future whose maiden time travel voyage goes awry. Children under 12 aren’t allowed to time-travel yet, but Arco is too impatient to wait, so the curious adolescent steals his sister’s time-traveling robe — a rainbow-patterned adorned cape — and makes his first trip.

Crash-landing in 2075, Arco encounters Iris (Romy Fay), a girl his age. Iris lives with a nanny bot named Mikki (Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman), programmed by her parents to help raise her and her baby brother, and she leaps at the chance to make a real friend, especially one who looks at her world so curiously.

The film builds a hopeful climate change story around these little dramas of adolescent friendship. The looming environmental disaster is reflected in emergency drills and empty supermarket aisles. There’s a haunting quality to this, especially considering how much of contemporary life it mirrors. Arco aims to inspire action with a reminder that the most powerful tool younger generations can wield is their imagination.