It’s 2019. Documentary filmmaker Philippe Belley is reviving his lifelong dream: swimming the 32 kilometers of Lac Saint-Jean. It was then that he challenged his 14-year-old daughter, Clara, to accompany him in achieving this extraordinary feat. They thus have two years to train, physically and psychologically, to connect the two shores of the lake which stretches as far as the eye can see. If she is an excellent swimmer, Philippe Belley, on the contrary, is much less experienced. But no matter, by dint of determination and passion, he will never let go of this obstacle course.
“The heart has its reasons that reason does not know,” said the philosopher Pascal in his Thoughts. Indeed, the pandemic, the confinement and the icy waters of the Pekuakami, the Innu name of this “shallow” lake, have never got the better of Philippe’s ambition. It is actually his own body that will prevent him from achieving his goal. On August 12, 2021, shortly before D-Day, Philippe Belley died suddenly following a malaise while training with Clara at Lac Clairval, near Saguenay. He was 39 years old and loved ones who admired him for his strength of character.
The crazy crossing of Philippe, more than a simple account of this quest, is a gripping documentary on the detours of existence, on love and on mourning. On generosity and on humanity too, since the film recounts this adventure punctuated by precious encounters that changed the course of the life of this Saguenay father, forever.
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