Biography
Florence Miailhe was born in Paris in 1956, the daughter of French artist and Nazi resistance fighter Mireille Miailhe and her husband Jean. She graduated from the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs de Paris and then worked as a graphic designer while continuing to be active as an artist. Encouraged by artist Robert Lapoujade, she made her first short animated film in 1991, "Hammam," about two women who visit a hammam for the first time. At the Amiens Film Festival, "Hammam" won the Short Film Award, and it was also nominated for Best Short Film at the French César Film Awards.
By 2013, Miailhe had made eight more short films, all highly personal animated films that screened at numerous festivals, some of which won multiple awards. For example, "Au premier dimanche d'août" (FR 2002), about a traditional dance event in a village, was named Best Animated Film at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival and won the César for Best Short Film. "Conte de quartier" ("The Lost Doll," FR 2006), about seven city dwellers whose paths cross, received a Special Jury Mention at the Cannes Film Festival. She received an Honorary Award at the prestigious Annecy Animation Film Festival in 2015.
Miailhe creates her animations using pastel or sand directly under the camera, techniques known as "animated painting" and "sand animation." She has collaborated with author Marie Desplechin and composer Denis Colin on most of her films.
As early as 2007, Florence Miailhe began writing a feature film screenplay titled "La Traversée," which she eventually completed with Marie Desplechin. The story, inspired by the flight of Miailhe's great-grandparents from Odessa, is about two children who have to flee their village because of a war and go in search of a new home. In 2011, Miailhe and Desplechin won the Best (Unrealized) Screenplay award at the Premiers Plans festival in Angers. In 2017, Miailhe began filming, and the world premiere of "La Traversée" ("The Crossing", FR/DE/CZ) took place in June 2021 at the Annecy Festival, where the film received an Honorable Mention from the Jury. Further festival screenings and several awards followed. At the Leipzig DOK Festival, "The Odyssey" was awarded the special prize "Gedanken-Aufschluss"; it was nominated for Best Animated Film at the 2022 Césars. The film was theatrically released in Germany in April 2022.