Men Who Swim

A National Film Board of Canada production about synchronized swimmers.

Perfect follows the Canadian synchronized swimming team beyond the beauty, to the brawn it takes to qualify for Rio 2016.

In August 2020, Olympic artistic swimmer Ona Carbonell became a first time mother, an experience that reshaped her life overnight.

Mısra and Defne are close friends and duet partners who met each other through synchronized swimming. After failing to qualify for the 2016 Olympics, they set a shared goal, the 2020 Olympics. Not too long after, their esteemed coach Natalie is fired by the federation with no explanation. What follows is an emotional devastation and disruption of scheduled practices, which in turn leads to a decline in their performances. Political tremors in Turkey and the global pandemic lead the duet to make a decision on whether to keep the fight or to find new paths in life.

A short documentary exploring the gender inequality that male artistic swimmers are facing in the Olympics, including intimate interviews with Spanish mixed duet Pau Ribes and Emma Garcia, and legendary American male artistic swimmer Bill May.

In February 2022, in Kharkiv, twin sisters Maryna and Vladyslava Alexiiva had to flee in the middle of the night under the bombs. In extremis, they take with them their bronze medals, won in Tokyo a year earlier in synchronized swimming. They took refuge in Italy for six months, then decided to return to Ukraine to reunite with their team. From then on, they were obsessed with a single goal: to win the gold medal in Paris in 2024.

Giovanni's dream is to become the first boy to compete in the Dutch synchronized swimming championship. He's got just one more exam to go.

In a Japanese school, 5 adolescent geeks join the new sport teacher and take up the challenge to take part in the synchronised swimming competition, in-spite of the mockeries of the real sportsmen.

Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.

Seventeen-year-old Jenny dreams of becoming a synchronized swimmer. Family events turn her life upside down and she is forced move to a remote area to look after her ill father and younger brother. It won't be long before Jenny starts pursuing her dreams again.

40-year-old Bertrand has been suffering from depression for the last two years and is barely able to keep his head above water. Despite the medication he gulps down all day, every day, and his wife's encouragement, he is unable to find any meaning in his life. Curiously, he will end up finding this sense of purpose at the swimming pool, by joining an all-male synchronised swimming team.

The blue depths of the swimming pool is her home. Keesje is a passionate synchronised swimmer, and the big competition is just around the corner. However, when a fight erupts between the girls during the final rehearsal, everything changes.

A man who is suffering a mid-life crisis finds new meaning in his life as part of an all-male, middle-aged, amateur synchronised swimming team.

Iris and Kimberly, two close friends from Brabant, share a passion: synchronised swimming. They have been a duo for so long that their whole lives seem to run synchronously. When the day of the big event dawns, both their talent and their friendship are put to the test. Are they both motivated enough to maintain perfection? Is their friendship really as harmonious as they think?

12-year-old Mira is fascinated by her synchronized swimming trainer and tries to get closer to her, which quickly puts both of them in a situation that’s difficult to interpret.