
Synopsis 
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Everything is bigger in the Altai, the mountainous frontier between Mongolia, China, and Russia. This is what Damian and Dom discover there, skiing the high summits for three weeks and enduring early spring storms.

Opening up to the vastness, they must overcome their differences and learn to survive together, totally isolated at their high-altitude base camp - a tiny yurt in an expansive terrain of snow.

Once liberated from the modern electronic appendages, Damien immediately enters into resonance with the Altai Mountains of the Tavan Bogd, the Five Saints. He is the one opening the door to the sacred dimension of the place and to the interaction that its inhabitants nurture with them.

More info on altaitude.com



Tout est plus grand dans l’Altaï. C’est ce que Damien et Dom découvrent en skiant sur les hauts sommets de la frontière entre la Mongolie, la Chine et la Russie.

Mais pour s’ouvrir à cette immensité, ils vont d'abord devoir dépasser leurs différences et apprendre à survivre, à deux pendant trois semaines, dans le froid et l’isolement de leur camp de base, une frêle yourte posée en altitude dans la neige.

Une fois libéré des appendices électroniques de son temps, Damien entre immédiatement en résonance avec les montagnes de l’Altaï dans le massif du Tavan Bogd, le massif des cinq saints. C’est lui qui ouvre la porte de la dimension sacrée de ces lieux et de l’interaction que ses habitants entretiennent avec eux.

Plus d’info on altaitude.com





The intentions of the film Director
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Why are we going for adventure sport expeditions?
What is my added value and what do they have to offer me?

In addition to working as University teacher, entrepreneur and creator of IT start-ups,  throughout my life I have participated in numerous wilderness adventures in both horizontal and vertical environments.

We are living in an increasingly virtual world, in which everything has to happen faster and faster. I am convinced that outdoor sports can act as an antidote to this virtual space where young people today are often massively entrenched. And preferably not the craziness of extreme sports, where young people challenge each other and themselves, but an activity in which they open themselves to the silence and the rhythm of their footsteps or the sound of skis gliding over snow. In this way they discover their own inner music and who they really are and how they can start to become effective actors of change in today’s world. The next step is meditation, unless no, this process might actually be meditation in itself.

To enable such modern maneuvers, we set up the non profit association capexpe.org, a community of adventurers. Cap Expe encourages us all to dream of an adventure and realize it easily and inexpensively. Rather than buying an ‘all inclusive’ prefabricated adventure, including the photos to be published on Facebook, the Cap Expe community empowers novice adventurers to come up with their own plan and execute a trip themselves. We share gear and experience, and we train these young adventurers – female and male – to become self-reliant in risk management, which is necessary for these types of outdoor activities.

Pursuing the same objectives for a wider audience, I am immersing myself in making films. First I co-organised and took part in paraplegic Arthur’s Alaskan adventure portrayed in the film entitled “Le Pouvoir des Rêves” [The Power of Dreams]. More recently, my film « The Nahanni Whisperer » recounts a packraft journey on the Nahanni river in the Northern Territories in Canada to climb the Lotus Flower Tower with four other friends.
Why did I want to make this film?

Originally in this Altai project, I wanted to gather friends from different previous expeditions to explore the high summits of Altai on skis together from a yurt used as a base camp, while asking them the following question: « Why in our modern society that is everyday becoming more and more virtual and is openly rejecting any risky behavior, do we see more and more people engaging in hazardous adventures to reconnect with the wilderness and with themselves? »

For many reasons the original project never took off and I unexpectedly ended up alone adventuring with just one colleague, the 19 year old Damien.
If local herders helped us setting up our high altitude base camp, a tiny yurt in an expansive terrain of snow in the Altai at the border between China, Russia and Mongolia, we were rapidly left alone, isolated for several weeks. Opening up to this vastness, we quickly become confused by the borderless white plains: « If you think it’ll take an hour, allow two. If you think it’ll take a day, allow two. » To survive together, jointly defying all risks, we had to readjust, conclude a pact and bridge our age differences.

With this movie, I want to share this incredible slow nomadic journey at the heart of this magnificent Altai highlands that expanded our vision and made us enter in a space of meditation that really transformed both of us.


Nous vivons dans un monde de plus en plus virtuel où tout va de plus en plus vite. Je suis convaincu que les sports d’aventure peuvent être un antidote. En s’inventant une aventure, nous pouvons reprendre les rênes de nos vies, à condition de respecter certaines règles.

Ma plus grande joie c’est d’aider les plus jeunes à dépasser la déconnade entre potes ou encore les challenges sportifs qu’ils se fixent, pour s’ouvrir au silence et au rythme du pas, de la pagaie ou du glissement du ski dans ces grands espaces. C’est là qu’e nous pouvons découvrir notre musique propre, ce que nous sommes vraiment. C’est là que les masques tombent et qu’une nouvelle relation à l’autre peut s’enclencher, passionnante.

En même temps, ce que j’aime plus que tout c’est la transmission : rendre autonome ces jeunes aventurières et aventuriers dans la gestion des risques que ces aventures requièrent. Plutôt que d’acheter une aventure préfabriquée “all inclusive” y compris les photos à publier sur Facebook, je les pousse à s’inventer leur propre aventure et à la mettre en musique eux-mêmes.

La réalisation de films et en particulier celui-ci, participe pour moi à ce même élan, tout en voulant en élargir encore l'audience.



Director Bio
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Dom studied engineering in Belgium and at the Stanford University in California. He holds a ph’D in computer science from the Caen University in France. In addition to working as University teacher, entrepreneur and creator of IT start-ups, he has participated throughout his life in numerous wilderness adventures in both horizontal and vertical environments.

He set up the non profit association capexpe.org, a community of adventurers. Cap Expe encourages us all to dream of an adventure and realize it easily and inexpensively. Rather than buying an ‘all inclusive’ prefabricated adventure, including the photos to be published on Facebook, the Cap Expe community empowers novice adventurers to come up with their own plan and execute a trip themselves.

His main motivation has always been teaching and knowledge transfer. That is also why he is now fully diving into film realisation to try finding answers to the following question: "Why in our modern society, that is everyday becoming more and more virtual and is openly rejecting any risky behavior, do we see more and more people engaging in hazardous adventures to reconnect with the wilderness and with themselves? »

First he co-organised and took part in paraplegic Arthur’s Alaskan adventure portrayed in the film entitled “Le Pouvoir des Rêves” [The Power of Dreams]. More recently, his film "The Nahanni Whisperer" (thenahanniwhisperer.com) recounts his packraft journey on the Nahanni river in the Northern Territories in Canada to climb the Lotus Flower Tower with four other friends.



Entrepreneur et créateur de start-ups informatiques, Dominique a créé l’association Cap Expé, une communauté d’aventurières et d’aventuriers, pour encourager leurs rêves d’aventure et surtout leur réalisation en autonomie. Il accompagne chaque année de nombreux jeunes dans les grands espaces sauvages, horizontaux comme verticaux.

Sa motivation principale c’est la pédagogie et la transmission. C’est aussi pour cela qu’il se lance aussi aujourd’hui dans la réalisation de films.

Son premier film, "Le passeur de la Nahanni" a reçu plusieurs récompenses et a été présenté dans de nombreux festivals internationaux.






