At the beginning of the 20th century, on the island of La Réunion, five adolescents of good families enamoured with the occult, commit a savage crime. A Dutch Captain takes them in charge for a repressive cruise on a haunted, dilapidated sailboat. Exhausted by the Captain’s methods, the five boys prepare to mutiny. Their port of call is a supernatural island with luxuriant vegetation and bewitching powers that holds a disturbing secret.
Awards
- New Waves Special Award - Seville EFF
- Rebels With A Cause Audience Award - Tallinn Black Nights FF
- Gérard Frot Coutaz Award - Belfort EntreVues IFF
- Best Film (Les nouveaux alchimistes section) - FNC Montréal
- Best Director - Vilnius FF
Festivals
- Settimana Internazionale della Critica di Venezia 2017
- Festival du Nouveau Cinéma Montréal 2017
- Seville European Film Festival 2017
- Belfort International Film Festival EntreVues 2017
- International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018
- Göteborg Film Festival 2018
- IndieLisboa 2018
- Filmfest München 2018
- New Horizons International Film Festival 2018
- Sarajevo Film Festival 2018
Labels & Line Ups
Credits
- Cast
- Pauline Lorillard
- Vimala Pons
- Diane Rouxel
- Anael Snoek
- Mathilde Warnier
- Sam Louwyck
- Elina Löwenson
- Nathalie Richard
- Screenplay
- Bertrand Mandico
- Cinematography
- Pascale Granel
- Editing
- Laure Saint Marc
- Music
- Pierre Desprats
- Hekla Magnusdottir
- Production
- ECCE FILMS
Press
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It’s a subtle example of edgy political cinema in today’s mellow dullness.
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Mandico has succeeded in translating his radical, poisonous and lustfully voyeuristic world into a feature-length format, not only in terms of the aesthetics of experimental cinema, but also the dialogue on where gender bending ends and equality begins.
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Blending elements from Lord of the Flies, A Clockwork Orange and even Emmanuelle (...) where gender bending ends and equality begins.
Bertrand Mandico
France
Above all, the feature-length format is all about the pleasure of being able to work intensively with your actresses and actors.
Born in 1971 in Toulouse, Bertrand Mandico graduated from the film directing programme at the Gobelins animation school in Paris. Over the years, Bertrand has cultivated a unique aesthetic and a flare for dark humour that juxtaposes macabre elements and burlesque. He has enriched his cinematic studies with various still format publications, photography, collage and drawings. Bertrand has also worked on promoting forgotten or underappreciated filmmakers (he programmed a Walerian Borowczyk retrospective in Warsaw). His audiovisual creations (a total of 40 short films, TV-commercials and musical films) have been awarded various prizes. His first short film THE BLUE HORSE RIDER won the Annecy Prize Grant in 1998.
HE WAS EDDY'S DOG was part of the 2001 Cannes Film Festival’s short selection. His project BORO IN THE BOX, an irreverent portrait of Walerian Borowczyk, won the Clermont-Ferrand Festival Grant in 2008. THE WILD BOYS, selected at Venice IFF, will be Bertrand Mandico’s first feature length film. In 2018, his short film APOCALYPSE AFTER will have a special screening in Cannes for the 57th Semaine de la Critique.
