The Six Day Race is one of the world’s most extreme individual endurance sports events. Dating back to the 1870s, the race originally revolved around gambling and reward money, but today it is more about spiritual self-transcendence and meditation.
The film shows 35 runners from various countries running laps around a one-mile paved loop in a park. They race against each other, but equally test the limits of their own endurance, striving to run with minimal sleep. The film’s main protagonist, Ashprihanal Pekka Aalto, slept only 2-3 hours per night during the race.
Like many of his fellow contestants, Ashprihanal is a devotee of the Bengali spiritual Master, Sri Chinmoy. Our aim was to make the film as pure and simple as possible, just as running is to Ashprihanal.
The film plays with the idea of ultra-marathon runners as the spiritual guides of the future, escaping the stress of the rat race and clearing the mental clutter of our techno-centric lifestyle. By renouncing modern comforts, they become human machines, liberated of all earthly desires. (MT)
Selected screenings:
- Glasgow Short Film Festival, Scotland, 2014
- Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Germany, 2014
- Time Machines, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland, 2013
- Uppsala Short Film festival, Sweden 2013
- Le Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal, Canada 2013
- Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä, Finland, 2013
- Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Germany, 2013
- Tomorrow’s New Dawn, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, USA, 2013
- 59. Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Germany, 2013
- Indie Lisboa, Portugal 2013
- Life Like, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki, Finland, 2013
- Ekenäs Film Festival, Finland, 2013
- IFFR Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2013
