Josep

Josep (2020) is a hand-drawn historical drama by French cartoonist Aurel, and you can watch it online on iFILM. His first feature played in the official Cannes selection and went on to win the César for best animated film.

The winter of 1939. The Spanish Republic has fallen, and tens of thousands who refused Franco pour across the border into France. The welcome they get is barbed wire — camps in the sand where exiles dig their own shelters and die by the hundreds of thirst and disease. On opposite sides of the fence stand a French gendarme and a jailed artist, Josep Bartoli. Their wordless friendship becomes the thread of the film, tracing Bartoli's real journey from the Catalan dunes to New York and Mexico, where Frida Kahlo was waiting.

Aurel draws the camps in raw pencil and bleeding watercolor, and that deliberate roughness lands harder than any polished reenactment. Sergi López lends his voice. It's heavy material handled with tenderness — for viewers who love adult animation and want a true story the textbooks skip over. Stream Josep (2020) online on iFILM.