Julián (2026)

Louise Bagnall's first feature, co-directed with Guillaume Lorin, expands Jessica Love's 2018 picture book Julián Is a Mermaid into a whole summer. Seven-year-old Julián stays in Brooklyn with his Dominican grandmother, discovers her Caribbean community and becomes captivated by a mermaid parade. It swaps Celtic myth for a coming-of-age story about self-expression, and the 2D drawing has a deliberately rough, hand-made line, with uneven pencil pressure and loose color. It premiered at Annecy in June 2026 and played Toronto, with distributors lined up in Ireland, the UK, France and Canada but none yet in the US, so look out for local dates.