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.