Directors: Maya Lussier-Séguin, Pierre-Olivier François Producers: Denis Poncet, Julie Chauvin, Alexandra Carr-Brown Colcy, Maximilien Colcy
Description:
Their
names are Jean, Yvette, Gabriel and Christiane. De Gaulle famously
said: “Old age is a shipwreck”. Although they may be his
contemporaries, this statement does not quite apply to those four
swimmers. At 78, 88 or even 101 years old, they’re still determined
to break new records in competitive swimming. In their film, Maya
Lussier-Seguin and Pierre-Olivier François have portrayed these four
champions of the Masters category across today’s France during the
2014/2015 sporting season. They share a passion for swimming. And
that’s how they rise above their old age and the difficulties that
a youth-fuelled society would rather forget all about. As they go
about their training, they speak about solitude and how to best avoid
it, about the hurdles of life and how they overcame them, about our
society that neglects or dismisses our elders and how they deal with
it all. In Strasbourg, Mulhouse or in the suburbs of Paris, in a
swimming pool, at a pottery class or during a family reunion, they
dispense their mental and physical strengths, their discipline, their
optimism that allow them to last and outlast everyone. Swim for
Life is a documentary about seniors both extraordinary and
ordinary, both bearing the weight of a long history and staunchly
looking towards the future. Unassuming swimmers in their lane, until,
to everyone’s surprise, they climb once again on the podium and
break a new record for France, Europe or the World. And that’s
where we rediscover their incredible “joie de vivre”.
Biography: Maya
Lussier-Séguin is a graduate from the Mel Hoppenheim School of
Cinema at Concordia University in Montreal where she was introduced
to documentary filmmaking by inspiring directors such as Martin
Duckworth, Michael Snow and Pierre Falardeau. After earning a
bachelor of fine arts in 2010, Maya moved to Paris, France where she
began her career as a production’s assistant with What’s Up
Films. In 2014, she chose to focus on her creative career and
participate in the production of historical documentaries of
international scope for PBS: Dday’s Sunken Secrets, directed
by Doug Hamilton or the six-hour documentary series: The Great
War, by Stephen Ives which explores the American force’s role
in WWI. Maya has been also a dedicated swimmer for over twenty-five
years and has met senior swimmers through her competitive career.
That’s how she was inspired to make her first documentary film Swim
for Life (Troisième nage, in French). In 2015, she was
selected by the Fondation de France to be the recipient of the
Salavin-Fournier grant for young artists. She's currently
artist-in-residency at La Cité des Arts de Paris.
Pierre-Olivier François has been a journalist and reporter for several TV news broadcasts and magazines for ARTE (Métropolis, le Blogueur, le dessous des cartes). Born in 1971, he was brought up in France and Germany and has been a reporter all around the globe. He was chief editor for Zoom Europa (ARTE) in 2008/2009. Since 2000, he has directed and written over a dozen documentary films for several French, German and international TV networks on topics such has cyberwar and cyber surveillance, UN peacekeepers, future of the international press media, Putin’s Russia, Alzheimer’s disease, biofuels, the end of Communism, globalization as studied through the prism of prepared meals and drinks, and the two Korea’s history.
