Discoveries from Réunion World Cinema

On July 19–21, 2001, over 200,000 people took to the streets of Genoa to protest against the ongoing G8 summit. Anti-globalization activists clashed with the police, with 23-year-old protester Carlo Giuliani shot dead after confronting a police vehicle. In the aftermath, the police organized a night raid on the Diaz high school, where around a hundred people between unarmed protesters—mostly students—and independent reporters who documented the police brutality during the protests had took shelter. What happened next was called by Amnesty International "the most serious breach of civil liberties in a democratic Western country since World War II."

Thomas, a 15-year-old from Réunion, dreams of winning a breakdance contest and moving to mainland France. When his mother abruptly throws him and his sister Audrey out, they’re placed with an estranged father and forced to fend for themselves. The film follows the siblings as they confront abandonment and try to rebuild their lives, with dance as Thomas’s way to cope and push forward.

Tumultuous events triggered by the death of a Dutch sugar plantation owner who ends up leaving his Indian Ocean island estate to his young illegitimate son - the child of his Indonesian housemaid.

An unfulfilled lawyer travels to Réunion Island to write a story and finds fulfillment while coming to terms with childhood trauma

Having spent 20 years observing the failures of traditional psychiatry, Dr. Amadeus Bellami decides to delete the rules and let his patients' inner worlds take over.

A documentary about 1950's Reunion island.

Shunned for his difference, Hélios the rooster-man bears the weight of the dawn in his feathers as the night shuts him out.

When a mysterious drug arrives with no return address, a desperate couple chooses health over caution—only to lose their past in the process.

While her relationship with her mother worsens, a grieving young adult wants to see her father, one last time...

On the Island of La Réunion, a young native kills his friend in a fit of rage.

On Réunion island, inhabitants of Malagasy origin perform a ceremony in honor of their family's ancestors twice a year. The ritual in this film takes place at the home of Madame Sautron, a soothsayer-healer. The film follows the four stages of the ceremony, which lasts for 24 hours in all.

Alain is a little boy from the Reunion Island born on the wrong side of the tracks. To earn a few pennies, he recites Arthur Rimbaud’s poems to drivers stuck at the red light. One day, Alain is invited to Guillaume's birthday who lives uptown.

A few hours before the start of the new year, an ambitious woman, a broken man and a young girl in search of freedom come face to face with implacable truths. Under the shock of revelations, souls are set ablaze. Nothing will ever be the same again.

The life of Mrs. Desbassayns is exceptional in more than one way in the history of slavery on the island of Réunion. Married at the age of 15 to the forty-year-old Henri-Paulin Panon Desbassayns, this young Creole woman named Hombeline Gonneau immediately embarked on an extraordinary journey. She found herself, in fact, at the head of the most powerful landowning family...

While Le Tampon might seem peaceful, Katiana goes undercover as a delivery driver to solve the mystery of the neighborhood florist and his hidden romantic life.

In an insular city, a young girl is paralyzed by the fear of her loved ones disappearing. Her grandmother tells her the tale of Edwardo, the first one of his kind to have fought death.

One deck of 52 cards. One heart-shaped balloon. Tons of disasters. Mathieu will stop at nothing to give Jade the perfect romantic surprise at sunset.

Rachid is a solitary character who is often the object of mockery of all kinds. But he has a special power ... and he will prove it!

Payette has drag in her blood, but she doesn't want it on her face. As the clock ticks toward showtime, her iconic drag parents must decide if the show can go on without the sparkle.

As the sun sets over the ocean, Estelle risks everything to send a secret message to the man she truly loves.

When Prosper’s new automated clone begins acting strangely, a routine domestic upgrade turns into a standoff.

In a Reunion Island housing project, as the time of the sacrifice for the Aïd el-Kebir approaches, Ibrahim, 12 years old and of Comoran descent, is bullied by Evan, a neighbor of the same age, who accuses him of being an animal killer. When Ibrahim learns that a goat is about to be delivered to his building he decides to save it . . . but Evan is watching. The rescue of the goat leads to some unlikely alliances as Ibrahim attempts to succeed at the rescue against all odds.

On 25th July 2020, the bulk carrier MV Wakashio, with 3,800 tonnes of fuel oil, ran aground off the East coast of Mauritius. Twelve days later, the oil spilled onto the coral reefs, causing the worst ecological disaster ever to occur in the region.

In Réunion, a young woman from La Source, a suburb of Saint-Denis, walks around and goes from house to house to visit. Mother to one and navigating a frustrated love story with a plumber, the home she nurtures is a popular place for gathering the community.

Seven years after the Great War, Leyla wakes up at 6:45 a.m. under the clinical watch of an AI entity. Her daily loop of statistics and rigid harmony is shattered when a delivery man makes an unforeseen mistake. Forced out of her routine, Leyla must confront a reality that the system was never designed to control.

A survivor of a catastrophic climate accident confronts the man he holds responsible for his scars.

For several years, Dayann and Samir have been living their love story from a distance. Every year, they meet up for a few weeks on Reunion Island, where Dayann has decided to stay and work, while Samir is studying in Paris. Dayann is convinced that this time Samir is going home for good.

On Mayotte, the only island in the Comoros that is still French, a group of outlawed young men lead their lives in the shadows, hunted by the police. Although they were born on this island north of Madagascar, not all of them hold French citizenship. They have nothing to rely on but their dogs.

2067. A mother tells her daughter about her ancestor’s struggle against a large-scale rare earth mining project in Madagascar, and the resistance of the people in the north of the Great Red Island, faced with the systematic plundering of natural resources in the name of the economic interests of the globalised North.

The island of La Réunion, a gem nestled in the Indian Ocean, mesmerizes with the richness and variety of its breathtaking landscapes. A true mosaic of biodiversity and natural wonders, this island offers a visual and sensory spectacle that awakens the senses and nourishes the soul.

Some say that a garanti talisman offers a direct connection with the gods, while others believe that ancestors need to act as intermediaries. Whatever the case, the result is the same: a garanti offers protection and brings happiness.

In Réunion, runaway slaves, gone to live free in the heights of the island, build a kingdom: the interior kingdom. In this place steeped in the invisible, they will enter into connection with Gromonmon.

On an island lost in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the inhabitants are colonized by a mutant people carrying a virus.