Animal eclipses co-star Jean Reno in filming of My Penguin Friend

The film My Penguin Friend has two main characters – one played by a Hollywood star and the other by a newcomer – but there was no doubt on set about who should be the most pampered.

The first-timer had a “trailer” with a natural saltwater pool and only worked until 3pm. To keep the star from being bitten by a mosquito from the tropical Brazilian beach, a flamethrower would clear the path before and after each scene.

At the end of each day, a weigh-in was done to ensure the actor had not lost weight due to the stress of filming.

“I had to tell Jean Reno, a cinema legend, ‘Jean, the penguin is more important than you in this film’… he was incredibly respectful and understood,” said the film-maker David Schurmann, who directed My Penguin Friend.

The film, which premiered in the US on 16 August (with no release date yet in the UK), is inspired by the true story of an unlikely relationship between a Magellanic penguin and a retired fisher from Ilha Grande, a paradise island in Rio de Janeiro state.

Between 2011 and 2016, João Pereira de Souza, known as Seu (Mr) João, now 80, received visits from the bird at Provetá beach in Ilha Grande.

Seu João says he first met the penguin in March 2011 when he found the bird covered in oil at the beach. He bathed and fed the bird, and the penguin, later named Dindim, decided to stay.

“It was an amusing scene,” said Cyro Scarpa, an executive producer for the Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo, who met Seu João and Dindim for a TV piece in 2016. “They would swim together, then the little creature would return home, go straight to the shower and wait for the man to turn on the tap.”

Scarpa, added: “Seu João would sit on the sofa to watch TV and the penguin would sit right next to him.”

A team from the Ubatuba Aquarium carried out a blood test that confirmed Dindim was male and placed an identification band on him. “Some months later, a penguin returned, and it was indeed Dindim,” said the aquarium’s director, the oceanographer Hugo Gallo Neto.

Magellanic penguins – named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who first reported the species in 1519 – have breeding colonies along parts of the coasts of Chile and Argentina, such as Patagonia.

During the southern hemisphere winter they swim to the coasts of southern and south-eastern Brazil in search of food.

So it is not uncommon for penguins to appear on Brazilian beaches, due to factors ranging from ocean currents to human actions such as industrial fishing, which hampers their ability to find food. In 2024, 1,128 penguins (76% of which were dead) were found along the Rio and São Paulo coasts.

What was highly unusual was the bond between Dindim and Seu João; during those five consecutive years there were periods when the penguin spent eight months on the beach and four at sea.

Related: Female penguins ‘get stranded more because they travel further’

In September 2016, Dindim returned to the sea earlier than expected and never reappeared.

As he was of breeding age, about six years old, it is possible that he found a group, returned to his place of origin and stayed there. “But obviously, it could have fallen victim to the many natural and human threats,” said the oceanographer.

It was from the same Ubatuba Aquarium that the 10 penguins who appeared on My Penguin Friend came. They were all rescued or born in captivity and took turns playing the role of Dindim, with limited working hours, after which they rested in climate-controlled “penguinariums”.

“Two of them fell in love during shooting,” said Schurmann. “Our penguin whisperer, Fabian Gabelli, said ‘these two won’t be working any more, let’s let them enjoy their romance’.”

Of the eight penguins left, one stood out and performed most of the scenes – seven-year-old Maui. “He worked very well with the actors. In one scene he calmly sat on the sofa while Jean petted him,” said the director.

Born in Morocco, the son of Spaniards and raised in France, Reno was joined by the Mexican actor Adriana Barraza – who was nominated for an Oscar for “best supporting actress” for Babel (2006). She played the Brazilian fisher’s wife, Maria. The dialogues are all in English.

There is an environmental angle – after all, Dindim was rescued covered in oil – but it is not “heavy handed”, says Schurmann, who is chief executive of the Voice of the Oceans Institute, an organisation that combats marine pollution.

“We tried to convey the message subtly, to first inspire people. When you like something, you’ll want to take care of it,” he added.

Schurmann spent most of his life sailing and, aged 10, was part of the first Brazilian family to circumnavigate the planet in a sailboat.

As My Penguin Friend is a film inspired by true events, there are changes to Seu João’s story. In the plot he loses a young child during a fishing trip – in real life, the fisher went 25 years without seeing the boy. He used to say that finding Dindim felt as if he were reconnecting with his son – which did happen, on the same TV show that made the story go viral in Brazil in 2016.

“People always talk about how Seu João rescued the penguin. But for me, the story is also about how Dindim rescued him,” said Schurmann.

There is no scientific confirmation about why the penguin returned year after year, but there are theories.

“I’m not sure, but I think Provetá somehow became his ‘Patagonia’ for a while,” said Neto. “Penguins are social animals … So I think Dindim saw Seu João as a member of his group.”

In 2022 the Brazilian media widely reported that Seu João was visited by a penguin he believed to be Dindim; that was later disproven.

Seu João attended the film’s premiere in Los Angeles last week.

“For me, this is a story about how even small acts of empathy towards another being, not necessarily a human, can have lasting effects,” said the film’s director. “I tried to create something that would give people some comfort, a bit of relief and hope in this harsh world.”