Julie Gauthier, former free diver. “I’m not the same as I was in my 20s, and water has something to do with it.”

sea ​​and father

Born in Réunion, he began diving at the age of 11 with his father, an underwater hunter. “It was my way of staying in and with the water longer.” He develops his observation as a knowledge of fish behavior. At the age of 18, he discovered that free diving, without a bottle, was a sport, he started practicing it and won two records in France (-65 meters and -68 meters). Another thing is: “we look at ourselves, we try to surpass ourselves, to show the world our abilities, our worth.”

Road by water

“It’s not a foreign or risky environment for me. I am as comfortable in water as I am on land. But in water, and especially with apnea, you can neither fight nor go fast. Progress requires body adaptations, mental adaptations. It is something that you then bring back with you to earth. Today I am quite a thoughtful person, I know what I want, where I am going, I am not the same as I was in my 20s, and water has something to do with that. My path was shaped by my experience with him.”

Art to warn

“I’m an underwater storyteller. The artistic side touches outside the marine environment, touches those who have no connection with the ocean. After a documentary about swimming and global success in the Loire Free fall (with Guillaume Neri), a film filmed by freediving in a 200-meter deep natural well in the Bahamas, simulating falling into the open sky, he will shoot his next feature short at the end of June, Bakelite giant (Bakelite is the ancestor of plastic, Ed.), produced by Newtopia, the production company of Cyril Dion and Marion Cotillard. “An environmental parable to raise awareness of plastic pollution in the oceans. It’s not the big pieces of plastic that shock me (there aren’t that many), but the micro pieces that we can no longer eliminate. Even in the Azores, which are still far from everything, I see them.

In the video, Big Bluethe teaser