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David Schurmann’s ‘My Penguin Friend,’ is a heartwarming film about the unconventional family that a man and a penguin find amongst each other. Joao, a fisherman from Brazil, undergoes a grave tragedy that silently upends his life. Shortly after, he comes across a penguin in its own precarious situation and rescues him from an oil spill in the ocean. As such, in the aftermath, the fisherman finds himself looking after the penguin, whom he names DinDim, forming a close bond with the flightless bird.
Even though the penguin ends up going back to the sea, it eventually returns home to Joao, traveling thousands of miles yearly to visit his human friend. Despite the unbelievable magic laced between Joao and DinDim’s friendship, the duo’s narrative feels grounded, compelling viewers to grow intrigued about the tale’s origins and potential basis in reality.
My Penguin Friend: The Real-Life Story of DinDim and Joao
The tale of Joao and DinDim’s interspecies friendship in ‘My Penguin Friend’ is inspired by the true story of the real-life eponymous man and penguin who found each other in 2011. On an island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a 71-year-old retired fisherman, Joao Pereira de Souza, came across a penguin on the local beach. The bird was covered in oil and nearing death due to starvation. Instinctually, Pereira de Souza decided to help the penguin and took him home to care for him. In the weeks that followed, the fisherman named his feathered companion DinDim and worked on getting him back to his full strength.
After cleaning his feathers and regularly feeding DinDim fish, Pereira de Souza tried to take the penguin back to the sea so that it could return home. Nonetheless, he refused to leave and stayed by his human companion’s side for the next 11 months. Although DinDim left the Brazillian island after changing his coat, he returned to Pereira de Souza a few months later. In the years that followed, the penguin returned to the sea in February before visiting the Brazilian fisherman who saved his life again in June and staying over until the next year.
“I’m flattered Dindim is happy to exchange his home with thousands of other penguins every year to find his way here to spend one-to-one time with me,” Pereira de Souza shared when discussing the same with the media. “It’s a very special relationship.” Even though experts usually discourage forming such bonds that prevent rescued animals from returning to their natural habitats, and the Brazillian law prohibits keeping wild animals as pets—an exception was made for the duo. Thus, DinDim and Pereira de Souza’s real-life story remains as stirring and uplifting as its cinematic counterpart in ‘My Penguin Friend.’ Ultimately, the most instrumental aspect of the film—the whimsical friendship between a human and a penguin—remains directly based on reality.
The David Schurmann Film Highlights Humanity’s Connection with Nature
Filmmaker David Schurmann is known for his masterful storytelling, which spans fictional films as well as documentaries. Furthermore, he has showcased a passion for ocean environmentalism, most notably through his family’s Voices of the Ocean or Voz dos Oceanos global initiative that combats plastic pollution in the oceans. Therefore, the opportunity to adapt DinDim and Joao Pereira de Souza’s story for the screen naturally appealed to the filmmaker, who realized the tale’s spirit would encourage people to hone a familial relationship with nature.
In a conversation with Manny The Movie Guy, Schurmann spoke about the same and shared, “When I heard Joao Pereira de Souza’s story, and I got invited to direct the film—[the things that attracted him to the project] those were natural things, you know—looking after the ocean, the ocean itself—talking about this beautiful human being doing an amazing, you know, [a] very simple act that becomes like a little miracle. Those were things that just rang into my ear, like, this is the kind of story I want to tell.”
Consequently, the message of an intrinsic connection between humanity and nature that DinDim and Joao Pereira de Souza’s lives reflect became the central core of the film’s narrative. Through their inspirational tale, the film highlights the significance of preserving nature and encourages the audience to shift their priorities toward caring for the planet. Thus, a crucial part of the story relies on building a connection between DinDim and the audience to enhance the impact of the bird’s adventurous story.
Real Penguins Were Cast as DinDim in My Penguin Friend
Schurmann maintained authentic ties to the real-life story behind the film to infuse the narrative with a sense of realism. “I wanted to make sure that we were as true as possible to the story. It is a true story. And he [DinDim] came back [to Pereira de Souza] for eight years in a row, which is unbelievable,” Schurmann told Slug Mag. Since DinDim’s character occupies the story’s crucial emotional nucleus, the filmmaker knew he wanted to ensure realism for his on-screen persona. One of the most vital aspects of achieving the same emerged from his decision to employ real-life penguins for DinDim’s character to flesh out a connection between the bird and the world around him. Thus, the film employs an ensemble of real penguins to portray DinDim on screen.
Discussing the same in an interview with Cinema Scholars, Schurmann said, “[So,] I wanted to bring as much of that authenticity as we could. I knew it was going to be challenging—obviously—working with animals is challenging, but penguins especially, being a bird, and not a lot of people have worked with real penguins. So, those things definitely attracted me to work with real penguins—because even though I knew it would be challenging, it was absolutely a necessity to be able to portray it right.”
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