Thibault BOURDON
I am a journalist and filmmaker, working closely with the community. For over ten years, I have documented societies in transition or experiencing tension, focusing on immersion and the voices of the inhabitants. My work explores how major geopolitical forces are experienced at a human level, in a kitchen, on the edge of a border, or on a dusty road.
I believe that you can only truly understand a country by taking the time to immerse yourself in it and share the daily lives of its inhabitants. I often travel alone, independently, by bicycle, motorcycle, kayak, or on foot, to distance myself from official pronouncements and make room for informal encounters. I learned English and Spanish to the point of fluency, and a practical Russian that has served me well where maps are no longer sufficient. These languages are not skills; they are doors that open.
My films explore identity, memory, power, and influence. They draw on individual experiences to show what people go through when their country is in turmoil—war, political tension, authoritarian legacies, or geopolitical realignments. I work alone or in small teams depending on the project, with the same intention: to create conditions of trust, gain access to communities that rarely open up, and accurately convey their stories.
In parallel, I collaborate with the YouTube channel Balade Mentale , I participated in the Deep Climate scientific expedition led by Christian Clot, and I published my first travelogue, L'Odyssée Est-Ouest (The East-West Odyssey ), born from my motorcycle journeys across Russia and the United States. My podcast, Echoes, extends this work by giving a second life to the long interviews recorded in the field.
Regardless of the country or situation, my priority remains the same: to listen, understand, and add nuance. To show how ordinary lives reveal, sometimes better than speeches, the major transformations of the contemporary world.