Madagascar, 1970s. Living on one of the last remaining French military bases, eight-year-old Thomas lets his fertile imagination run wild. Inspired by Fantômette, his beloved comic-book heroine, he begins spying on the idle grown-ups, whose breezy days of leisure and decadence are coming to an end.

Following his celebrated BPM (Beats per Minute), Robin Campillo continues to fuse the personal and the political in this sumptuous tale of lost innocence, drawn from the director’s own boyhood memories. Puncturing the cocoon of colonial privilege, Red Island captures the last gasp of a dying empire.