After earning an Oscar nomination a few years back for their animated feature A Cat in Paris, directors Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol are back with Phantom Boy. Following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, we named it one of our favorites of the festival and thankfully GKIDS have picked it up for a summer release. Today they’ve debuted the first U.S. trailer for the film, which follows a boy who is able to explore his city in a supernatural way.
We said in our review, “The much-anticipated follow-up to their Oscar-nominated animation A Cat in Paris was five years in the making and well worth the wait. With its vibrant colors muted for a NYC noir aesthetic and every 2D field shaded by roughly textured shadows in constant motion, the frames literally flicker off the screen to leave a lasting impression. The story—centering on a young cancer patient able to leave his body for brief periods of time, floating around the city and becoming the only hope of stopping a criminal mastermind—delivers a level of heartfelt dramatics to rival Inside Out.”
Check out the trailer below for the film that’s one of our must-sees of the summer.
Leo has a secret. A mysterious illness has transformed him into a phantom boy, able to leave the confines of his body and explore the city as a ghostly apparition. While in the hospital, he befriends Alex, a New York City cop injured while attempting to capture a nefarious gangster who has taken control of the city’s power supply, throwing the metropolis into chaos. Now they must form an extraordinary duo, using Leo’s phantom powers and Alex’s detective work to foil the plot and save New York from destruction. Phantom Boy continues Gagnol and Felicioli’s fascination with animated film noir, in a heart-thumping adventure that pushes their trademark visual style to literal new heights, as Leo swoops and soars above the greatest skyline in the world.
Phantom Boy opens on July 15th.