In the shadows of memory and power, a director revisits youth amid a changing world
Long before a celebrated filmmaker took to the streets of Paris in defense of AIDS patients, a young boy grew up on a French military base in Madagascar. What seemed like a paradise to him, a balloon of bright possibilities, would later become a bitter memory that shaped his gaze. After those formative years, he would step behind the camera to direct his first feature, a bold arrival that echoed his own activist youth. The film 120 beats per minute became an international doorway, reviving that spirit of civic passion. Among the competition selections at the San Sebastián Festival, Red Island emerges as a thread that links childhood innocence with a continent’s fraught past, weaving memories and dreams into the fabric of political history. A colonial memory surfaces on an African island, both haunting and revealing.
On paper, Madagascar appeared independent for more than a decade by 1972, yet the presence of French military forces underscored the continuing influence over local governance. In practice, the army often pooled its strength into social privilege, hosting gatherings, feasts, and beach sorties while maintaining a superior stance over the population. The filmmaker returns to this reality through the eyes of Thomas, a young alter ego who misunderstands the full consequences of his surroundings and seeks refuge in imagined worlds. The story becomes a gradual stream of scenes where no single event dominates, and a nostalgic surface gradually gives way to a stark political undercurrent.
The film makes a quiet call against colonialism as Malagasy men and women gradually step into the foreground of the narrative. The director wraps this fragile paradise in melancholy, capturing the beauty found in silence and glances, and the profound sadness that hides behind a seemingly ordinary family photograph.
Autobiographical threads also anchor the second feature as Kei Chika-ura, another title that contended for the Golden Shell in the same year. The Great Absence draws from the filmmaker’s experiences witnessing a father grapple with dementia. It follows a man tracing the fragments of lost memories to repair a fragile bond with a parent who is fading. The director reshapes past and present in ways that showcase a rare ability to convey intimate emotion through imagery, revealing how memories—tender and painful alike—accrete and crumble over time. The work does not shy away from the harsh reality of mental decline, nor does it soften the impact of the sorrow it causes for those who remain close to the afflicted.
The filmography thus traverses personal history and collective memory, showing that truth can be found in the quiet moments as much as in overt drama. The narrator’s reflections brush against the political textures of a continent undergoing decolonization and social change, reminding audiences that memory itself is a form of resistance. In both works the creative voice does not merely recount events; it reconstructs perception, inviting viewers to feel the tension between memory and reality, between what is seen and what remains hidden beneath the surface.
As the narrative unfolds, the cinema becomes a space where history and imagination converse. The director’s technique—measured, patient, and intensely visual—renders scenes of everyday life with a weight that resonates beyond the screen. Spectators are invited to witness the subtle shifts in power, the evolving roles of communities, and the enduring human craving for belonging. In this delicate balance of sorrow and beauty, the films offer a meditation on the price of memory, the resilience of family ties, and the stubborn persistence of hope even when days grow heavy with uncertainty. [Citation: Festival Archive]