“Once upon a time there was an invisible world. In this lost world, lived monsters and ghosts, chimeras and legends, daydreamers and those who put them to sleep.” It was the place where the “salamander boy” wanted to go to, so that his father would not forget him. Florian believed he could communicate with the dead through fire, with his father. He is the weirdest creature in the village where he lives. Thus, he is bullied by the local kids, who abuse him, beating and humiliating him. For being so often deemed a monster, he ends up turning into one and, henceforth, he will have many stories to tell his father. “The Salamander Child” is a narrative that walks between the surreal and the fantastic, putting the viewer before a world with many layers, not one of them being easily identifiable as the present time, in any place that could also be ours. This is the debut of Belgian director Théo Dégen at Curtas. (MM)