Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #15. Robin Campillo’s Red Island

Published on January 19, 2023

Vazaha (Les Blancs)

Forget about the numerous title changes, it appears that it took a little bit more time with detours due to the pandemic and dipping into different seasons and locations for Robin Campillo to put together his fourth feature. The Cannes-winning filmmaker for 2017’s BPM (Beats Per Minute), filming would have taken place in July of ’21 in France with Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Quim Gutiérrez toplining. Titled Vazaha (Les Blancs), the international title is Vazaha, The Strangers – but we expect that to change. This was written along with Gilles Marchand. Update: The title is now Red Island.

Gist: At the beginning of the 70s, in Madagascar, a few armed forces and their families live in one of the last French military bases abroad, a relic of the ending French colonial empire. Influenced by his reading of the intrepid comic book heroine Fantômette, Thomas, a ten-year-old boy, sweeps with a curious glance what surrounds him. Beneath the carefree expatriate life, his eyes are gradually opening to another reality.

Release Date/Prediction: We’d be inclined to think that Campillo wants this on the Croisette, but Berlinale and Venice are strong contenders.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).