Antoine Prost-Verdure, a neo-Sétois resident, set off to conquer the great white desert, Antarctica, to shoot his next travel diary. Barely back from his trip, he tells us.
“My camera there was my eyes and my writing is what is in my heart.” In a few words, Antoine Prost-Verdure sets the tone. A new resident of Sétois, this thirty-year-old decided to embark on an unusual adventure: to write a poetic travel diary in Antarctica.
Antoine has been holding the camera for several years now. After having cut his teeth at ESRA, a film school in Nice, he obtained his first jobs as a manager on the well-known Sète daily, Demain nous belongs. There, he obtained an internship to work with the camera and did not let go for two and a half years. “It’s a really good school on a daily basis. It’s intense and there are only great people there. I met some great people who allowed me to then go and work on John Woo’s films (The Killer, Mission Impossible 2…) or Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump…).”
Antarctica truly offers several landscapes
But Antoine’s thing is documentaries. He owes his departure to Antarctica to a trip to Mongolia in summer 2024, where he produced his first filmed travel diary. “I saw a photo of Mongolia under the snow there. I found it captivating. I told myself that this would be where I would write my next travel journal.” But small downside, Antoine hates the cold and Mongolia in winter, it is -40°C. “So I turned to Antarctica”. And contrary to what one might believe during his trip at the end of February, it was between 0°C and -5°C on the Peninsula. “Much more acceptable to me”laughs this lover of the image.
He left the singular island for a month and walked on the ice for 10 days. On board a sailboat, he experienced seasickness, “on the way there and back. It was not the time when I socialized the most with the twelve other people on board”he remembers, grimacing. But it was worth it. Because afterwards, he was able to make friends with an Irishman, even though he didn’t speak English, he was able to sleep under the stars in a hammock on the deck of the boat and he walked every day on the Antarctic islands. He was able to record the wind, the waves, and film this white which changes depending on the light. “Antarctica really offers several landscapes. Sometimes there was less sun but I found it beautiful, there were always different colors to observe.“
A travel diary more than a documentary
Before definitely setting his sights on this destination, Antoine read inspiring books such as the Odyssey of Endurance. “I dreamed of being the guy who took the photos of this entire expedition”. Or even Transantarctica, by Jean-Louis Etienne, offered by his mother. “Deep down, it’s perhaps the dream of all people who make documentaries to go and film Antarctica”he confides, smiling. The particularity of Antoine’s work is that he does not seek to make scientific or even journalistic documentaries. He, in addition to playing with images, he plays with words. This is why, when leaving, he took the boat accompanied, of course, by his camera, his tripod and two lenses. But especially with a book of poems. A face to be loved by Paul Éluard.
“Inside, there was a photo as a bookmark. My dad (which he lost at the age of 14, NLDR) and me.” His writings and films have always echoed this deceased loved one and this one will be no exception. But it will be up to the spectators to discern how he will bring it to life. Through his words? His videos of the white of Antarctica? Response in a few months.
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