It’s a historic year for the Reunion animation studio ! He is in the news again with two selections at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival : In Waves, by Phuong Mai Nguyen, at the opening of Critics’ Week ; et Jim Queen, by Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athané, in Midnight Session. These films benefited from the support of the Réunion Region, in partnership with the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC).
The Cannes Film Festival, Gao Shan Pictures connaît : the animation studio boasts a track record of seven films in total to have graced the Croisette. There was Zombillenium in 2017, I lost my body in 2019, Where is Anne Frank ! in 2021, Little Nicholas in 2022, Mars Express in 2023. But this year will be marked with a white stone. In Waves opens Critics’ Week. This is a world first : never before has an animated film been selected to open Critics’ Week, international showcase of filmmakers with high potential ! Adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by artist AJ Dungo, the film is produced by Silex Films and co-produced by Gao Shan Pictures. Around fifty artists contributed to its production which lasted for more than a year at the studio.. The synopsis : in Los Angeles, AJ, discreet high school student, meeting Kristen. She is passionate about surfing, him skateboarding and drawing. They fall madly in love. A happy future lies ahead. But everything changes when Kristen falls ill. Ensemble, they embark on a fight against adversity, carried by their love, their friends and their now common passion for surfing and the ocean.
Two films, two selections
The animated feature film Jim Queen in Search of the Chloroqueer, co-directed by Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athané and produced by Bobbypills, is selected in Midnight Session. For six months, more than thirty artists from Gao Shan Pictures worked on key stages of the film’s animation. Jim Queen climbs the steps… and Reunion with him. Jim Queen shakes up the codes of animation to become one of the most unique cinematographic objects of the year. A free and unfiltered work, which celebrates diversity and inclusion : Jim, sexy icon of the Parisian gay scene, sees his life turned upside down when he contracts Heterosis, a strange virus that turns gay men into heterosexuals ! He then sees everyone turn their backs on him, except for his last follower (and first admirer). Ensemble, here they are in search of a mysterious remedy capable of curing Jim and preventing the extinction of homosexuality...
