The Vendée Globe is a single-handed (solo) non-stop round the world yacht race. The race was founded by Philippe Jeantot in 1989, and since 1992 has taken place every four years. It is named after the Département of Vendée, in France, where the race starts and ends. The Vendée Globe is considered an extreme quest of individual endurance and the ultimate test in ocean racing.
The Velux 5 Oceans Race was a round-the-world single-handed yacht race, sailed in stages, managed by Clipper Ventures since 2000. Its most recent name comes from its main sponsor Velux. Originally known as the BOC Challenge, for the title sponsor BOC, the first edition was in 1982. In the late 1990s the race was renamed the Around Alone. After attracting just five entries in the 2010-11 race, the event has not been held since.
Sheffield DocFest, short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England.
The IMOCA, is a 60ft development class monohull sailing yacht administered by the International Monohull Open Class Association (IMOCA). The class pinnacle event are single or two person ocean races, such as the Route du Rhum and the Vendée Globe and this has been intimately linked to design development within the class.
Christian Frei is a Swiss filmmaker and film producer. He is mostly known for his films War Photographer (2001), The Giant Buddhas (2005) and Space Tourists (2009).
Mike Golding is an English yachtsman, born in Great Yarmouth and educated at Reading Blue Coat School. He is one of the few yachtsmen to have raced round the world non stop in both directions. He held the solo record for sailing round the world westabout between 1994 and 2000.
The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June 2020. In addition to the annual festival, Hot Docs owns and operates the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, administers multiple production funds, and runs year-round screening programs including Doc Soup and Hot Docs Showcase.
Pucker Up: The Fine Art of Whistling is a documentary film on the 31st Louisburg International Whistling Competition that follows a Washington D.C. investment banker, a Dutch social worker and a turkey hauler among others as they compete for a prize in competitive whistling.
Renée Scheltema is a Dutch documentary filmmaker and photographer, living in Cape Town, South Africa. She has been making documentaries for 35 years.
Alex Thomson is a British yachtsman.
Shimon Dotan is an Israeli film director, screenwriter, and producer.
Hernán Zin is a war correspondent, writer, producer and filmmaker of Italian-Argentinian origin based in Madrid, Spain. Since 1994, he has traveled around the globe directing documentary films, writing books and contributing to news outlets
Julian T. Pinder is a Canadian-born film director, producer, and writer. He created, directed and executive produced Fire Chasers, a four-part Netflix Original series with Leonardo DiCaprio, released in September 2017, and was nominated for the US Award for Social Justice at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in 2010.
Mike Plant was an American single-handed yachtsman. He competed in the BOC Challenge and the Vendée Globe, a single-handed non-stop race around the world. After five years of single-handed sailing, he logged over 100,000 miles at sea and set the record for the fastest solo circumnavigation by an American, with a time of 135 days. In 1992, Plant was preparing to compete in his second Vendée Globe and fourth single-handed circumnavigation aboard Coyote, a powerful Open 60 sloop, and was lost at sea while delivering Coyote from New York Harbor to Les Sables-d'Olonne, France for the starting line. Coyote was found 32 days later, turtled, without the 8,400 lb lead bulb that should have been attached to the keel. At the time of his death, Plant was one of only five people to have completed three solo circumnavigations, joining Bertie Reed, Guy Bernardin, Jean-Luc Van Den Heede and Philippe Jeantot. On September 6, 2002, Plant was inducted into The Single-Handed Sailing Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island.
I Am Thor is a documentary about the life of bodybuilder and rock musician Jon Mikl Thor of the band Thor. The film was directed by Ryan Wise and produced by Ryan Wise and Alan Higbee and had its world premiere at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.
Conrad Colman is a yachtsman from New Zealand with dual nationality of New Zealand and America and is now based in France. In 2016 he became the first New Zealander to compete in the famous single-handed around-the-world race, the Vendée Globe. On 10 February 2017 Colman was in 10th place, 740 miles from the finish line when his IMOCA 60, the Foresight Natural Energy, was dismasted. Two weeks later he became the 3rd sailor in history to complete the Vendée Globe under jury rig, taking 16th place in the race with a time of just under 110 days 2 hours. Colman ran out of food after the dismasting, and completed the race on survival rations pillaged from his life raft.
Dídac Costa is a yachtsman who competes in ocean racing. He was the first Catalan and the second Spanish yachtsman to finish the Vendée Globe, the non-stop solo round-the-world sailing world race. He was the first Spanish yachtsman to complete the two IMOCA 60 class round-the-world yacht races: solo in the 2016–2017 Vendée Globe and double-handed at the Barcelona World Race 2014–15. He is the protagonist of the feature documentary Open Ocean (2021), which chronicles his 2016-17 and 2020-21 Vendée Globe campaigns.
Alan Nebauer is an Australian yachtsman who competed in the single-handed round-the-world 1994–95 BOC Challenge race aboard the yacht Newcastle Australia. Nebauer won two awards for his seamanship during the race, one of them for rescuing his British competitor Josh Hall, whose vessel foundered during the first leg from Charleston to Cape Town.
Nándor Fa is a Hungarian yachtsman, born on 9 July 1953 in Székesfehérvár (Hungary).
