Florence Miailhe's 'La Traversée': An Animated Masterpiece on Exile

Florence Miailhe's first feature-length animated film 'La Traversée' (2020, 84 min) was released in French theaters on September 29, 2021. The film, dedicated to Miailhe's mother Mireille Gladik Miailhe and her grandmother who fled Odessa in 1905 with ten children to escape pogroms, explores the universal theme of exile through the story of children Kyona and Adriel. The project took fifteen years to complete. Miailhe, known for her short film 'Hammam' (1991), uses a painted animation technique that blends abstraction and figuration, with scenes such as a circus performance transforming into a spectacle of colored lights. The film opens and closes with a sketchbook, based on drawings Miailhe's mother made during World War II while hiding from raids. Xavier Kawa-Topor, writing in artpress2 n°50 (spring 2019), praised Miailhe's approach as both plastic and narrative. The film is produced by Gebeka Films.