Red Island

Please note this screening is part of Woodbridge Film Society's 2024/2025 Season and therefore not open to the public. You can read more about the Film Society and how to join here

Robin Campillo, director of the acclaimed 120 BPM and Eastern Boys, mines the memories of his upbringing in post-colonial Madagascar to create a spellbinding, autobiographically inspired drama that mixes forms and textures to stunning and imaginative effect.

Inspired by his own childhood, the film is set in the early 1970s and follows eight-year-old Thomas growing up on a French Air Force base in recently independent Madagascar. From the innocent perspective of a child, the island is a paradise and a playground. But as adolescence grows near, he begins observing his parents and their circle of friends with new eyes, and childhood innocence slowly gives way to a more shadowy understanding of the hypocrisy and racism that defines France’s military involvement on the island.

As Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian beautifully summarised, ‘Robin Campillo has surrendered to the flow of memory to bring audiences a wonderfully personal film, created with tenderness, unsentimental artistry and visual flair.’

Programme Type: Film

Strand Type: WFS

Director: Robin Campillo

Cast: Nadio Tereszkiewicz, Quim Guitierrez, Charlie Vauselle

Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 117 minutes