Cartoon Saloon animator Louise Bagnall makes her feature directorial debut with “Julián,” based on the children’s book “Julián Is a Mermaid” by Jessica Love. It tells the story of a 7-year-old boy who spends the summer with his abuela in Brooklyn. He digs into her colorful past in the Dominican Republic and follows his dream to become a mermaid, while she unlocks long-buried memories as they both discover truths about who they are and the power of self-expression, identity and family.
Zoe Saldaña is one of the executive producers, while Film New Europe is handling international sales; CAA Film Sales has U.S. The source material and the film are very sophisticated in probing familial tension, melancholic yearnings and bullying. Julián is a catalyst for “her own understanding of who she is and her own kind of loss,” says Bagnall.
She also embraces joy in the end and is able to “re-embrace a part of herself and a part of her life that she thought was gone.” That heritage and the grit of Brooklyn collide onscreen in colors and sounds. We wanted to try and keep that little bit of roughness around the edge, so that you could see weeds growing out of the pavement, or you see cracks in the wall, so that it felt believable and specific, but still beautiful, even in its even in its imperfection. It’s beautiful, and I think that again ties back to the themes of the film, and how we aren’t all perfect, but we can make the most of it.” Julián’s imagination lends itself to magical realism: swimming in the sea with creatures and when the spell is broken, there’s water all over the apartment.
There’s several charming scenes that exude the pure joy of a 7-year-old’s mind. All the backgrounds are made on paper with pencils and markers. The idea was that we were using the same tools that Julian would have in his pencil case.” “Julián” is at TIFF looking for distribution, and is produced by Nora Twomey, Tomm Moore, Paul Young, Anthony Leo, Andrew Rosen, Stephan Roelants, Fabien Renelli, Charlotte de la Gournerie and Lewis Taylor.
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