In this issue of Leader Réunion, we wanted to highlight a sector of local production which has perhaps not yet been perceived in its proper dimension and potential : audiovisual creation. Animated cinema and video games are beginning to have a certain weight in Reunion. Especially, animated cinema fuels the influence of Reunion Island in the metropolis that we probably had not thought of in the last century. We owe this influence first of all to the father of Reunion animation : In 1993, Alain Séraphine laid the first milestone on the path that, thirty years later, makes Reunion a “land of entertainment”, to use Arnauld Boulard’s expression, founder of the Gao Shan Pictures studio – 1993, which was also the year of the creation of Leader Réunion. For ten years now, Arnauld Boulard and his team at Gao Shan Pictures took over. I invite you to discover the impressive series of animated films that this studio has helped to create and produce., films, many of which have won awards at prestigious festivals. Thus one of the latest, Mars express, of which Gao Shan Pictures did all the 3D animation, was nominated for the César for best animated film 2024 !
publication director and editor-in-chief
The company also develops a production activity, which opens up new perspectives : the children's film. In the dark and mysterious forest, which will be one of the event releases in national theaters of the last quarter, will bear his signature. Finally, we owe Reunion’s influence in the world of cinema to the Réunion Region and its support for film production. The community is now going further by carrying, with the Western Territory and the commune of Saint-Paul, a regional artistic hub project which will help advance artistic digital professions towards greater creativity and professionalism. Whatever name we give it, creative industry, intangible economy, it is indeed a local production sector in its own right, who must be reckoned with and which enriches with avant-garde know-how the current of innovation which irrigates Reunion Island.
