The forest passage
by Robin HUNZINGER
2019 - 92 min & 52 min - HD
In coproduction with Vosges Télévisions and RTGE.
With the support of the CNC, the Grand Est region, the Eurométropole de Strasbourg, and the Procirep-Angoa.
Director and Screenplay: Robin Hunzinger
Image: Robin Hunzinger, Julien Picot, and Gregory Rodriguez
Sound: Marc Namblard
Editing: Benoît Quinon
Sound Mixing: Franck Rivolet
Color Grading: Gautier Gumpper
Original Music: Siegfried Canto
Selections
Interférences Festival, Lyon 2019
Educational Film Award, International Educational Film Festival, 2019
SYNOPSIS
Why, at the age of fifty-six, did Erik Versantvoort decide to leave his job to live in a wooden cabin deep in the Vosges Forest?
Some say that, in a sudden craving for freedom, he wanted to turn his back on his life as a laborer to embark on an adventure that lasted only a year. Others say he knew he was terminally ill and had gone to this remote hermitage in the middle of the Vosges Mountains to die there.
I met Erik in April 2017 and filmed him for six months until his death on September 16 of that same year.
With this film, I want to delve into the myths surrounding a man who abruptly chose to sever his ties with society to lead a simple life—perhaps because he was terminally ill and it was time to live life to the fullest.
THE DIRECTOR
After studying history and art history in Strasbourg, Robin Hunzinger went on to study film at Jussieu under Jean Douchet, Jean Rouch, and Bernard Cuau. Since then, he has been directing documentary films exploring history, war, the traces of memory, humanity’s confrontation with the unthinkable, and nature.
He is a home filmmaker. He writes, reads, reshoots, scans, crops, retouches, records, edits, and re-edits—often alone—in his studio in the Vosges. Among his major films are Où sont nos amoureuses, Vers la forêt de nuages, and Inventaire avant disparition.
His films have been screened at numerous festivals: Cinéma du réel (Paris), the Etats généraux du film documentaire in Lussas, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Beirut Film Festival, FIGRA… He has received two SCAM Stars, as well as the Grand Prize at the Traces de Vie Festival in 2008, the Ahmed Attia Award at MEDIMED in 2011, the FREEDOM International Prize at the Luxor African Film Festival, the Special Jury Prize at the Pan-African International Film Festival in Cannes, and the Best Documentary Feature Film award at the Martinique International Film Festival in 2016.
Other works with Ana Films :
Ultraviolette et le gang des cracheuses de sang (2021)
Motoco (2023)
