The swimmer who went from the Olympics to Auschwitz and back again
The Oscar-nominated short Butterfly (Papillon) transforms the extraordinary life of Alfred Nakache (1915-83) into a work of beauty, grief and flowing memory. Born in Algeria, the Jewish French swimmer competed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, survived Auschwitz, and later returned to the Olympic stage at the 1948 London Games. His life, marked by both unimaginable suffering and athletic grace, becomes in the film a meditation on endurance, freedom and the sustaining power of water.
The French animator Florence Miailhe tells Nakache’s story through the memories that surface during one final swim. With each stroke, fragments of love, resistance, imprisonment and liberation rise and dissolve. Miailhe painted every frame by hand, giving the film a tactile, dreamlike quality that mirrors the movement of water itself. Her connection to Nakache is also personal: he once crossed paths with her father in Toulouse, where both were involved in the French resistance. In narrative and image alike, Butterfly finds its deepest force in motion — the motion of a swimmer, of memory, and of a life that refused to stop moving.
Director: Florence Miailhe
Producers: Ron Dyens, Luc Camilli
Website: Sacrebleu Productions
