The documentary film, The 108 Journey was conceived by Montrealer Hugo Rozon who needed to come to grips with his bipolar disorder. The film was selected at the Snowdance Independent Film Festival in Germany which takes place March 20-23, 2021. The film competes in the best director and best script categories.
At the age of 18, Rozon returned from a road trip to California and experienced a psychotic break and an episode of mania. He was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings including emotional highs and lows.
Travel to India was a spiritual quest
After a period of abusing alcohol and antidepressants, the now 25-year-old Rozon decided to go on a spiritual quest through India in 2020. At first, he wanted to shoot a film using his phone and a small GoPro camera. He soon realized that would not suffice and he called a fellow Montrealer, Mathieu Perrault Lapierre to come to India to help him.
As part of his recorded experiences, Rozon visited a crematorium and felt death all around him, he bathed in the Ganges river and discovered peace of mind at the foot of the Himalayas. The co-producers went to Nepal and wanted to climb a Himalayan mountain, but they were stymied by pandemic restrictions and had to stay in place for two months.
Making the documentary is said to have allowed Hugo Rozon to open up to the outside world and be his true self. (still from The 108 Journey)
‘What I am is my greatest strength…’
Shot between March and May 2020, the film reveals the content of Rozon’s diary as he travelled and decided to have a positive outlook on mental illness. “I don’t want a cure because what I am is my greatest strength wrapped in my most vulnerable weakness,” he said.
The documentary is said to have allowed him to open up to the outside world and to be his true self. “He finds the pieces of the puzzle to put his existence back together,” reads a statement about the film.
The title refers to the number 108 which is regarded as auspicious in Hinduism and yoga.
The film’s premier will be broadcast on January 28, 2021 at 8pm ET at www.the108journey.com. Rozon is launching a fundraising campaign to raise some of the money he invested in the production of the documentary.
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