The first footage from Konstantina Kotzamani’s debut feature has just arrived, and it’s unlike anything else in this year’s selection.

The Greek filmmaker has conjured something genuinely strange and irresistible: a dayglo fantasia about girls who train to become professional mermaids, and the one among them who learns that the costume is only the beginning.

Set in a Japanese boarding school where teenage girls learn to hold their breath, perform for adoring crowds, and swim alongside sharks, the film follows 17-year-old Akame as she finds her voice, discovers first love, and ultimately undergoes a metamorphosis.

It taps into something primal — the same childhood longing that made Daryl Hannah’s mermaid in Splash an icon, and that has fueled a real-world mermaid performance subculture ever since. (This writer explored that obsession in a recent episode of It Happened in Hollywood, with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer reflecting on how they brought Splash to life.)

As teased in the clip, Kotzamani’s world is filled with saturated colors and hypnotic ideas. It’s equal parts aquatic spectacle and coming-of-age pressure cooker. It’s the kind of film that invents its own genre — part fantasy, part body horror, part J-pop fantasia.

A multinational co-production spanning Greece, Germany, Romania, France, Spain, and Japan, the film boasts a cast of Japanese actresses led by Arisa Sasaki, with music by Patricia Ferragud and cinematography by Raphaël Vandenbussche. International sales are handled by Paradise City Sales.

Un Certain Regard has an excellent track record for this kind of thing — formally adventurous films that leave audiences slightly altered. It’s the section that gave us Lukas Dhont’s Girl and Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan before the world caught up with them. Titanic Ocean has all the hallmarks of a cult object in the making. Do hold your breath.

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