NOMAD'S LAND - SUR LES TRACES DE NICOLAS BOUVIER
Switzerland 2008 – Director: Gaël Métroz – Original language: French, Hindi, Urdu – Subtitles: English, German – Length: 90 min.
"One thinks that one is going to make a journey, yet soon it is the journey that makes or unmakes you," wrote Nicholas Bouvier in his 1953 travelogue, "The Way of the World". In 2005, inspired to retrace the author’s journey from Geneva to Sri Lanka, Gaël Métroz headed east, camera in hand, only to find that the countries that Bouvier had passed through in his Fiat Topolino were no longer as the celebrated travel writer had described them. Political crises, tribal violence and civil wars now marked the region that Bouvier once found to be carefree. Disheartened, the young Swiss director deviated from his original plan of faithfully following Bouvier’s road. Instead he started to follow in the meandering footsteps of the nomads. Travelling by foot, bus, camel and yak, Métroz discovered fulfilment in random encounters and in the harmony between man and nature. His film is a pensive, poetic piece, which reveals a philosophy of travel best summed up by Bouvier’s words: "Travelling outgrows its motives, it soon proves sufficient in itself."
English/Original Title: Nomad's Land – In the footsteps of Nicolas Bouvier. Production: Tipi'mages Productions. Producer: Francine Lusser, Gérard Monier.
