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Perhaps it’s true that the way of water has no beginning and no end – at least this is the case for the record-breaking French swimmer Alfred Nakache. Florence Miailhe’s latest short film Butterfly (also known by its French title Papillon), produced by Ron Dyens, showcases the real-life story of Nakache, a Jewish Olympic swimmer who faced great antisemitism during the early Nazi infiltration at the 1936 Berlin games. Through a series of hand-painted animation styles inspired by painters from the early part of the 20th century, Miailhe gives the audience a heartfelt glimpse at Nakache’s life from childhood to finding love to his elderly years after the war, as they relate to his relationship with water.
In addition to recently landing a spot on the 2026 Oscars shortlist, the 15-minute short film has also won Best French Short Film at the 2024 Annecy International Animated Film Festival and the Generation Kplus Best Short Film at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Below, Dyens and Miailhe speak to Deadline about the importance of unearthing human stories amid the tragedy of the World War II era.
DEADLINE: You’ve had a direct line of connection to Alfred Nakache since you were young. How long has this story been brewing inside of you?
FLORENCE MIAILHE: The idea didn’t come to me until around the time I was gathering financial support for a feature film called The Crossing, and we were having some difficulty trying to make the film. So, I started to think about what other type of film I would do after this feature. I then started to remember Alfred Nakache. And his brother, William, who taught me how to swim. My father also knew Alfred, whom he met in the French Resistance during World War II, and he was someone my dad admired a lot. So, I did some research and discovered the whole picture of his life, and that’s when I thought maybe a film about him would be the next step.
DEADLINE: When you were approached about the story, what drew you in?
RON DYENS: Apart from working with Florence, a director I have known and admired for 25 years, there are themes in Butterfly that touch me deeply. First, of course, is Nakache’s incredible resilience in the face of the demons of his past, which stem from the greater history of his country. He was stripped of his nationality even after the fact that he was a world champion, he lost his entire family in the Nazi genocide, he could have died in the concentration camps, but then [after his release] he returned to the Olympics with the support of his friends in the sporting world – that’s no small feat.
Then there’s the subtext: some people denounced the Nakache family, but others saved Alfred when he returned from the camps. The whole tragedy of human duality is ultimately reflected in Nakache’s story. I found that Florence had the art and the ability to convey these themes that are sort of haunting me at the moment.
DEADLINE: In your research, what was something you absolutely wanted to get across in the film?
MIAILHE: It struck me that Alfred, his first wife, and their daughter had been sent to the concentration camp [Auschwitz] during the war. He made it out, but his wife and daughter died there. That was an important thing for me to share in the film. But it was also important to depict the relationship between Alfred and water, because his whole life had been linked to it. From the beginning of his life, he was afraid of water, and he overcame this fear and became a great champion. When he was in Auschwitz, he was known as the Auschwitz Swimmer because they had him do [trials and labor]. Also, at the end of his life, Alfred swam one or two kilometers a day, and he died of a heart attack in the sea near the Spanish-French border. The fact that his life started and ended with water made me want to make that a common thread throughout the movie.
DEADLINE: The animation reminds me of ancient Greek portraits or something like that. It feels like scenes from the film should be hanging up in a museum somewhere. What was the style inspiration here?
MIAILHE: The inspiration for the style came from 20th-century painters such as Chagall, Picasso and Fauvism. There were also old paintings of swimmers that inspired me. Also, my mother was a painter, which had a significant impact on me. Coincidentally, some of my artworks and film stills will be at the Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration [Museum of the History of Immigration].
DEADLINE: What was your favorite scene and your most challenging scene to depict?
MIAILHE: My favorite was the scene with Nakache [meeting the woman who would later become his first wife]. She’s dancing in the water with some other swimmers, but that’s not historically accurate because at that time in North Africa, dancing in the swimming pool like that didn’t exist. A showy display like that existed in the U.S. but not in North Africa. His wife was also a swimmer, though [so I took liberties] and they met during competition. What I also liked about this was that it showed Alfred’s love life, even though their love story is only about two minutes in the short film. It was really important for me to share this about him. It adds to the theme of the water connecting to Alfred’s life, now through love.
The most challenging scene to do was the arrival at the concentration camp because I didn’t know how to depict [the Nazis] and Alfred and his family being split up in the movie. It was challenging work.
DEADLINE: You’re back on the Oscars trail after your recent Flow win. What does it mean to be involved in the Oscars shortlist for Butterfly? And what do you think people are responding to?
DYENS: First of all, it’s a tremendous honor to be shortlisted for an Oscar again. It’s recognition of my work as a producer, and it means even more to me because this time I’m moving from an animated feature film to a short animated film, from a CGI film to a 2D film and from a male director to a female director. But I retain two important themes in both films: water and a post-apocalyptic environment. So if we’re talking symbolism, water has to do with purification and wisdom, and that’s where it gets interesting because I think Butterfly touches us deeply because what people intuitively feel is that our lives today are quite hectic and that the distance Alfred manages to achieve in his life in Butterfly along with the animals in Flow can be compared to a form of wisdom in the face of material contingencies that tend to take over too much. It’s a delicate distancing from all this agitation. I think that the heart of these two films speaks to our own hearts, beyond the dark context that surrounds them.
DEADLINE: Now that you’ve made the Oscars shortlist, what do you hope people will consider about this film?
MIAILHE: This is always a very difficult question. I hope people will be moved by Alfred Nakache’s story and rediscover it, because it’s not well-known in France. Also, we are living in some very troubled times in a world where racism and antisemitism are back. So, it’s important to watch things and remember that history does not repeat itself. It’s been very nice to be on the shortlist for my movie about these topics, as it’s given the film a lot of visibility, and I am proud of all who made that possible.
[This interview, conducted through an interpreter, has been edited for length and clarity]
English (US) ·