Nadia, Butterfly

Pascal Plante's 2020 Canadian film follows Nadia, who decides to retire from swimming after the Olympics. She swims her last race and is then left with the emptiness that will last through the rest of the games. The subject is the time immediately after stopping. Nadia is still in the athletes' village; she goes to the celebrations, drinks, tries to define herself outside sport and cannot. The narrative gives this not as a crisis but as an interval. Katerine Savard leads and is a swimmer herself, which is where the reality of the pool scenes comes from. The narrative does not centre on competition and does not follow the usual structure of sports films. Who it's for: those who like quiet Canadian drama and narratives about life after sport. Who it's not for: viewers expecting the tension of a race; the film finishes its main event at the start.