The Florida Project was the provisional name given to the vast complex of rides, restaurants and shops built in Orlando and opened, in 1971, as the Walt Disney World Resort. It’s also the title of one of this year’s most irresistible films, set on a stretch of Route 192 that passes through nearby Kissimmee – a land of strip malls and motels such as the Magic Castle Inn, the purple, tiered development where the movie’s fictional characters live.

At the heart of The Florida Project is Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), a six-year-old who swears like a trooper, plots ways to procure free ice cream with her young friend, and gets up to no end of trouble. She lives with her pugnacious single mother (Bria Vinaite) on the brink of destitution, helped by the hotel manager (Willem Dafoe) who keeps a roof over their heads.

If the world's movie critics get their way, The Florida Project will sweep the board at the 2018 Oscars. And if Prince gets a Best Supporting Actress nod - as many believe she should - she'll make history as the youngest nominee in Academy Awards history.

Sean Baker, the film’s director and co-writer, made a name for himself with Tangerine, a 2015 drama about transgender sex workers on Santa Monica Boulevard. That film was famously shot on three iPhones and assembled into a startlingly funny, scratchy and exuberant vision of street life.