17 years already. Since its creation, the festival has not missed any of its meetings with an ever more curious and passionate audience. No doubt because “Adventure and Discovery” offers us this exhilarating break which is somewhat lacking in our daily lives. In Yucatan, in Afghanistan, on the rooftops of Abyssinia, or in Namibia, we will discover hitherto unknown landscapes, men and women who look or almost look like us… incredible adventures.
For a few days we will become the heroes of a universe still full of promise. We also owe the success of this festival to you, always more present and more enthusiastic. May these adventures and discoveries continue to live long in our hearts and minds.
Sylvain Tesson
Sylvain Tesson studied geography and geopolitics with Yves Lacoste before devoting his life to writing and long-distance travel.
After presenting the program Montagnes (France 3), he cycled around the world, crossed the Himalayas on foot, Central Asia on horseback, walked from Siberia to India in the footsteps of gulag escapees. , traveled the Caucasus and Anatolia to investigate oil, participated in humanitarian and archaeological missions in Afghanistan.
From his adventures in the Russian Far East, Mongolia, the Himalayas and Tibet, he brought back around fifteen stories, essays and collections of short stories, most of which are available in pocket editions. His latest work recounts the life of Alpine hunters in Afghanistan: Haute tension, Gallimard. His collection A Life to Sleep Outside published by Gallimard won the Goncourt for short stories in 2009 and the short story prize from the Académie Française.
He collaborates with Figaro Magazine, writes documentaries for France 5. He loves climbing, books and horse riding. Last year he stayed in a cabin in the middle of the Russian forest for six months and is preparing a “Cabin Journal” to be published in the Nouvelle Revue Française in spring 2011.
Louis Bodin
In 1981, Louis Bodin graduated from the National School of Meteorology. The same year, he was hired as a forecaster at Météo France weather stations. In 1995, he joined La Chaîne Météo as Editor and began presenting the morning newspapers. At the same time, he designed and presented the monthly show “Le temps des mots” from June 1998 to 2001.
In 2002, Louis Bodin became head of the RTL weather service and in 2009, he presented the weather bulletins on i-Télé. At the same time, he works as a scientific consultant. In 2010, he left i-Télé and joined TF1 to present the channel’s weather reports. The same year, he presented the show “Elément Terre” on RTL. Since December 2012, while continuing its collaboration with RTL and TF1, it has presented each month on Ushuaïa TV special programming linked to an environmental issue or a destination to be preserved.
In February 2013, the book Weather Travel Guide which he co-wrote with Bernard Thomasson was published by Odile Jacob. Louis Bodin is also passionate about aeronautical and marine meteorology: he was notably weather advisor and router for Florence Arthaud in 1990.
Marianne Chaud
Marianne Chaud
Marianne Chaud, born in 1976, is an ethnologist, graduated from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She devoted her doctoral thesis to the study of the relationship of men to their territory in the Himalayan region of Ladakh Zanskar, in northern India. For 12 years she has returned regularly to this region, making long stays in different villages, at different times of the year. Welcomed by Ladakhi families, she learned their language, adopted their rules, and participated in their work.
Since 2006, she has been making documentary films in this region which has become her privileged terrain for exploring the universality of man.
She shoots her films alone, equipped with equipment reduced to the essentials. This choice gives him the freedom to do long shoots in a relationship of great intimacy with his characters. Her films “Himalaya the Land of Women” (2007), “Le chemin du ciel” (2008) and “La nuit nomade” (2012) have won numerous awards at various festivals around the world.
Among other things, she won the CMC Espoir Prize in Val d’Isère with “Le chemin du ciel” and recently, she won the Best Film Award at the Banff Mountain Film Festival with “La nuit nomade”.
Evrard Wendenbaum
Evrard Wendenbaum
Passionate about nature and exploration, Evrard is an organizer, photographer and director of expeditions. His work has led him over the past ten years to explore some of the most inaccessible corners of the planet, such as the gigantic walls of the Karakoram and Yosemite by climbing, the ice caps of Alaska and Patagonia on skis, passing through a few islands. of the Indian Ocean and the forests of the Amazon and Indonesia by canoe.
Evrard brings back from each of his explorations splendid images and incredible adventure stories which have been published and presented in numerous festivals and in the media around the world.
In 2007, his first film “Amazonian Vertigo” shot during the ascent of Salto Angel in Venezuela won eleven awards in the biggest international mountain and adventure film festivals (notably in Val d’Isère).
He also directs the environmental association Naturevolution and strives to use his skills to preserve biodiversity. In particular, he led three major inventory missions of the biodiversity and archaeological riches of the Makay massif in Madagascar. Missions which gave rise to the first 3D documentary filming.
For those who were present at the Festival last year, we received him for his film “Makay, discovering the last Eden”. He is now developing a new and ambitious exploration project.
Marion Poitevin
Marion Poitevin
Marion started climbing at the age of 14 and mountaineering at 15. After several races in the Mont-Blanc massif, the Ecrins and the Aravis, she joined the Girls’ National Mountaineering Team in 2006 with which she went on an expedition to Pakistan in 2008. That same year, she was the first woman to join the High Mountain Military Group. She therefore went on an expedition to India to climb a 7,150 m peak, the Mukut Parbat. Then in Canada climb the east ridge of Mount Logan at 5,980 m, and finally in Antarctica climb the highest peak, Mount Vinson.
As an amateur, she participated in a women’s and polar steep skiing expedition on Baffin Island.
She likes diversity: climbing 8a, the polar environment, high altitude, ice climbing, steep slope skiing. Sometimes also paragliding, sailing, slack line.
Today, she is an aspiring high-mountain guide and instructor at the Ecole Militaire de Haute Montagne. Her next expedition: to climb the Zodiac route on the Capitan wall in Yosemite Park in California with her paraplegic friend, victim of a mountain accident, Vanessa François.
Monday
22
April
5.30pm
Light Line
| Direction | JEAN-BAPTISTE CHANDELIER |
| Duration | 5 min. |
The film Light Line was shot in Denmark during the summer solstice to search for the ideal light to highlight a new style of paragliding flight (proximity flight). A team of two cameramen (JB Mérendet, Adrien Nisan), a photographer (Louis Garnier) as well as the pilot Jean-Baptiste Chandelier have given themselves the mission of communicating the sensation of flight through images.
Wednesday
24
April
Aigle des Neiges hotel
3pm
Mini-Monstres en Amazonie
| Direction | Quincy Russel |
| Duration | 48 min. |
Man has explored all the continents… But there are still lands where life teems with mysteries. In the secret of the tropical forest, creatures thrive that seem straight out of a science fiction film. We call them mini-monsters. Most of these strange animals live in the forests of tropical America, particularly in the Amazon… Welcome to the secret world of membracides, curious and tiny insects with spectacular shapes. To reveal the secrets of membracides, the latest scientific imaging technologies were used: electron microscopy to film the infinitely small micro-scanner to penetrate inside the insects
Tuesday April 23rd from 11am - Snow front - drop zone
Géraldine Fasnacht from the film “One Step Beyond” will honor us with a wingsuit demonstration with her flying friends. A helicopter drop will be carried out above the Val d’Isère ski area, you will then be able to discover this spectacular discipline!
Tuesday April 23rd at 3pm - Margherio Square
Thursday April 25th at 11am - Aquasportif Center
Guillaume Néry, quadruple world freediving champion, does us the honor of sharing his passion with the festival public. On the program, breathing exercise, relaxation… and practice in the water!
Photographer - Vincent Munier
Up there, on the roofs of Abyssinia, live wolves with red coats, unique in the world and particularly endangered. Vincent Munier has one goal: to blend into the background and approach this mythical animal. He is an internationally recognized photographer who explores isolated lands and wide open spaces, in search of wild moments.
Photographer - Andy Parant
An exhibition from the Wi.D.E expedition on the film “The White Trap” will be presented to the public during the festival. You will be able to find photos of the adventure, the tent where the two men lived for fifty-one days, the diving equipment used in Greenland and thus discover the incredible human epic of Alban Michon and Vincent Berthet.
Photographer - Solenn Bardet
The exhibition “The Himbas, a life in ocher” presents the history and way of life of this semi-nomadic people of Namibia (rituals, wedding and burial scenes, artistic expressions). The exhibition was designed by Solenn Bardet and the Himbas of the Etanga community at the request of the Franco-Namibian Cultural Center. It was presented in Windhoek (capital of Namibia) in November 2008.
Sylvain Tesson
La géographie de l’instant
Work bringing together his columns in the magazine “Grands reportages”. If you don’t know what to read and if literary criticism bores you, read these tasty notepads where the raft of the jellyfish, Bach in the parking lots, Vassili Grossman, Jules Fox, Fleming and Maillart rub shoulders in a pure dazzling of intelligence and also rants. Without forgetting a bookseller from the peaks… J.P. Shafran
“The notepads published here are soundings, corings given into the shimmering mess of the world.” Sylvain Tesson
Louis Bodin et Bernard Thomasson
Le guide de voyage météo
Louis Bodin, weather presenter on TF1 and RTL and Bernard Thomasson, presenter of France Inter’s 12-14, novelist and meteorology enthusiast after fifteen years on the Météo Chaîne, have co-written a Weather Travel Guide. The two journalists advise travelers month by month depending on the climate.
Evrard Wendenbaum
Makay, à la découverte du dernier eden
The text and unpublished photos, signed Evrard Wendenbaum, take us to discover the massif to the rhythm of a modern epic. Zooms provide more in-depth sociocultural and scientific insights into this passionate and engaged story. The spectacular landscapes of Makay are also illustrated by 28 3D images. The book comes with glasses to fully experience the adventure in 3D. The work is prefaced by Jean-Marie Pelt, professor emeritus of plant biology and pharmacology at the University of Metz. President and founder of the European Institute of Ecology in Metz, he is a reference in the field of ecology.
Matthieu Paley, Mareile Paley, Ted Callahan
Pamir, Oubliés sur le toit du monde
At more than 4,200 meters above sea level, at the eastern end of the Wakhan corridor, in Afghanistan, some 1,150 Afghan Kyrgyz live outside of time, trapped by the vagaries of history. Although, since 1972, no Westerner had ventured there, Matthieu Paley visited them three times, in the middle of winter.
Arnaud Chassery
À contre-courant : traverser la Manche à la nage à la conquête de ses rêves
Who has never been tempted to break away from everyday life to confront the world? Who hasn’t wanted to change the rules of the game to determine for themselves the challenges to overcome? The ordeal that the author imposes on himself echoes the myth: swimming across the Channel. If it shows us that everything is possible, this story also proves that everything remains to be done. Arnaud Chassery is also the initiator, with Philippe Croizon, of the Swimming Beyond Borders project.
Éditions Les Cavaliers de l’orage, 2012.
Vincent Munier, Pierre Pelot
De crépuscule en crépuscule
Singular photographs, rare, twilight atmospheres, morning lights or evening lights, the same glow runs through this work. A deer emerging from behind a grove, a owl hiding in the snow, an Abyssinian wolf going hunting… Moments of life, from here or elsewhere, the animal is captured in its environment. The Lorraine landscapes are sublimated by those of the Far North and Africa and all landmarks are erased. From dusk to dusk, from the Vosges forests to the Norwegian tundra, from the Nordic snows to the African steppes, there is only one step, the same gait, the same twilight…
Nicolas Hulot
Nos années Ushuaïa 25 ans d’émerveillement
Nicolas Hulot tells the story behind the scenes and the surprises of one of the most beautiful shows of the last thirty years. How he was able, with a few friends and passionate scientists, to share the human and wild riches of the planet with as many people as possible.
Éditions du Toucan, 2012.
Frédérique Loew, Gilles & Corto Santantionio
30 ans d’expédition autour du monde en vol libre
This book recounts the thirty years of aerial wanderings around the world of Gilles Santantonio with his wife Frédérique Loew and their son Corto, aboard flying machines of all kinds. An original means of transport to witness the marvelous spectacle of the earth, to meet people, and to experience extraordinary emotions with them.
Éditions Romain Pages, 2010.
Solenn Bardet
Pieds nus sur la terre rouge
Published in 1998, “Barefoot on the Red Earth” is the reference book on the Himba. It was republished at the end of 2008, accompanied by a preface by Philippe Bossière, Ambassador of France in Windhoek (until December 2008) and an afterword by Solenn Bardet in which she puts into perspective the future of the red people: when a culture disappears, she reminds us, it is humanity that becomes poorer.
Editions Robert Laffont, 2008.
