Eudemonia is a snowboard short featuring David Djité and directed by Fabian Fuchs. David is studying psychology in Zürich and this is a subject that Fabian Fuchs also has a great interest in. The two instantly gelled over psychology and Eudemonia is the end result. Here is the story behind the making of Eudemonia from David and Fabi themselves.
Article by Tom Kingsnorth

Eudemonia has been released today, what did you set out to achieve in the movie and what were your goals for the film?
Fabian Fuchs: I really wanted to speak to a broader audience that is a little bit broader than our core snowboard world, but also still speaking to the core snowboarder too, because that's where we grew up and that's our culture. I hope people from outside that core world can relate to this and get affected in an emotional way. The most important thing to me was to show David’s positivity, the way that I know him, that speaks through his snowboarding and now also from his studies as a psychologist, to interweave this on different levels on a more artistic and abstract level.

David Djité: The whole idea came from my studies to be honest and from a snowboard perspective, I wanted to do something different, I didn't want to do just another movie. I am 29 now and getting older and had a lot of ideas that never got done before so thankfully to my sponsors, I get the opportunity to do it. This all came from psychology, if you think about psychology, 90% of psychology is about healing people with mental issues and there's like 10% in psychology which is about positive psychology. Positive psychology is about how can you become the best version of yourself and trying to get you to reach your full potential. During this pandemic, I had a lot of friends and family that I saw that were really struggling with that constant isolation and I thought I want to do something that showcases that you can do something alone that gives you pleasure in life and gives you a good engagement with yourself.

Laax is the resort of choice for Eudemonia but also your home mountain, what makes Laax so special to you David and also you Fabian?
Fabian: That's a good question, Laax always for me has been this magical paradise place. When I was younger, we only could take the train to more local resorts and I never could really afford to go to Laax. I was seeing so much footage and reading about it and it was already like on this whole other level. When I did finally go there, when we were older, we always went there for the Pleasure spring session and stayed there for a week and it was always prime weather, a prime Park and it's this surreal, perfect place for snowboarding, as we all know. For Eudemonia, everything connected so we made the whole film there. Obviously, David is from Laax and we were thinking about travelling around but couldn’t because of Corona but of course David knows the whole resort and it only makes sense that we should film it there. We had everything we needed to film there. For me personally my favourite terrain is riding in the forest, in between the trees and I know that's perfect in Laax and then David knows all the all the lines there too.

David: I mean for me, it's home. I've been lucky enough that my family has an apartment there since over 30 years, so before I was born and all my family are big ski people. got introduced to skiing when I was two and I went to the freestyle Academy since I was 9 was nine years old. I'm basically up in Laax for 20 years, every season. Even though I've been there 20 years I still discover new stuff every year. Of course, the pandemic made it pretty much impossible for us to travel anywhere and since we have this nice setup, we were like, why would you even think about going elsewhere? We had to adapt to the snow conditions in February when it was super warm but yeah, it was super nice, I love it. Laax is like a community, it's like we're one big family.

Fabian, what was it that attracted to you to direct the movie and what was the biggest challenge you faced?
Fabian: What attracted me definitely was the David’s snowboarding, he has a super unique way of expressing himself in a very positive way. We started talking about the concept I was interested in and I was also interested in getting to know David better his thoughts behind it, his vision and perspective on snowboarding. It just made sense with his psychology studies because I'm super interested in psychology and mental health too and David is becoming an expert on this level. When we started on the project, we had deep thoughts about the whole psychology aspect and that's the challenging part as we were talking about very abstract and important subjects. It was important for me to not make a documentary film that is verbally expressing what David is thinking about it, I wanted to communicate our thoughts using a different layer on an artistic level. I wanted it so you can feel something when you watch the movie and also, it leaves open space to what you feel. Of course, there are intentions but we all individually react in a different way and that was the challenge. We were making sure that it's not a trick performance snowboarding video. it's really not about that. There are a lot of those types of films out there and they are all great but they're all talking to their own niche and I think we fit in there in a very different way.

David, what made you pick Fabian to work with?
David: I knew Fabi is a great artist and filmmaker and I thankfully met him through Alexander Tank. I really like Fabi’s perspective on snowboarding and on psychology as well. So, we decided to try to do something different and show snowboarding as something you can do to get in touch with yourself and feel good with yourself basically and that was the motivation behind the project. We barely talked before this and now we're on the phone 24//7 I explained to him what my thoughts are and we talked it through and I quickly realised that he was on the same level as I am and we could combine those together and make something really great. I didn’t want it to be a park movie or a film where you go to the backcountry, land your 10 tricks and go home. As Fabi said before, the movie needed to be diverse, not just on the filmmaking but also on a snowboarding level too. I wanted to step in a new world and I'm really happy with the result with the voice that we did and I can't wait to see the reactions of people when this movie is out.

David, I remember immediately after your big accident you and some others weren’t sure if you were able to ride at the same level again but if anything, you have grown more as a rider since, how much of a challenge has that been to not only come back but to ride better?
David: The accident was the classic end of season, last trip of the season, when you are tired and probably hungover. When the accident happened, I have barely any memory of that time. I was in hospitals for six weeks and it’s just a big blur because of the medication and heavy concussions. When I got released out of the hospital, I really do remember that I hated snowboarding, I was so pissed at myself and at snowboarding and I thought why me? Why am I doing all this shit? Why do I put too much pressure on myself for all of this and it is it even worth it? Then I started physio and I started to look at things differently and realised it’s not the snowboarding, it's just the way I look at snowboarding. Then I started really to get into my recovery and working out five times a week and they told me for that I wouldn’t be able to ride for one and a half years and that I was lucky to still be alive, let alone walking with all the internal bleeding I had. Seven months later I was back riding and I remember that day so clearly because I was on the chairlift and I was crying because it was just so emotional for me to be back. I promised myself there that I'm never ever going to do anything in snowboarding again that I do not want to do. There is no way I will ever do something that I don't like and I think that approach toward snowboarding made riding way more fun. I mean, I'm not the most technical rider in the world, I couldn't compete at the Olympics and I can't do all those triples and all that shit, so I looked at my strengths and what I enjoy I think that made me stronger overall.

David, you are studying Psychology in Zürich, how did you manage your time between that and filming?
David: The thing is I'm studying away at the University Switzerland. So even before the pandemic, I've always had all my school stuff online and I do it part time, so it takes me four and a half years instead of three years. That gives me the freedom of being able to go snowboarding all the time. I can study from wherever I want and the only thing that is fixed is my exam time. That's usually in early January and end of June. The reason I started studying was I remember when I finished school, I thought I would never go back to school and I would just snowboard forever. Obviously, time goes by and you get older and you discover new things and your opinions change. I think when I started, I wanted to do something different but it really took me a year almost to decide what I want to do but now I'm really happy with what I'm doing. I love psychology and you have to like what you study or you are going to end up hating it.

How did psychology have an influence in the making of Eudemonia?
Fabian: I think Psychology was the greatest influence of the movie because of course when you direct a snowboard short, it's going to be about snowboarding, but what are we going to show, what are we going to talk about? Because I think there's so much content out there and I told him I don't just want to make another snowboard edit, if we do something has to be special in a way that we enjoy seeing it also should be timeless. Then we were really getting into the deep details about positive psychology and from there I structured where we could take this and that formed one column of the concept. From there, I could always check back if my ideas and the concept would make sense towards that psychology aspect, so really psychology is the base layer of the whole film. From that base layer, we started decorating it with snowboarding, with editing and of course with the music. Miles Singleton did such a great job on composing that film and that was something where the psychology helped a lot because David and I were talking so much about the psychology aspects and this is how I communicated the project with Miles for the composition. Miles is from outside snowboarding; I could show him some raw edits and explain snowboarding but our common platform was using psychology on an emotional level. I'm super happy, he did a great job and it was a lot of hard work and I think I might have been a little bit of a pain in the arse for him to work with haha. What was clear that since the movie is about the flow, we had this great opportunity to work with Miles and have one person that composed the whole thing. It almost sounds like one song but it's not because it's three parts but it flows very seamlessly into each other. I'm super happy what he came up with.

David, you’ve been on K2 for a season now, they really seem to be nailing it with the team, the products and the whole marketing program, what is it like to ride for K2?
David: It’s great. Tom Johnson, the global TM, approached me already in a really nice way and K2 so far has been like a big family. The only bad thing so far is that it happened during the pandemic, so I've never met anybody in person yet. It's a great honour to be riding for them and the team is stacked with such a sick team, they are some of the best snowboarders and to be alongside them means a lot to me. It also gives me a reward for what I'm doing and it makes me make positive for my future 100% and I'm super happy. For Eudemonia, they gave us all the trust and they just said we support you, your ideas sound Great, here you go. There was never a thing of; Oh, you have to do this, or you have to do that etc. The just said go for it and then they were stoked with the result and they have been really pushing it ever since too.

A lot of brands cut their budgets due to corona but K2, Northface and Doodah came together to support his movie, was it hard to convince them to put in the budget for the movie or did they back you from the start?
David: They backed us from the start, as I said before, they recently took me on their team and they knew what they wanted from me and had an idea of what they hoped was going to come out and thankfully we made a project that made them all happy. It’s something different, something that you maybe haven’t seen before and so we're going to be reaching a broader audience. I'm happy they all backed me all since the beginning and I have to underline that all of the sponsors were so supportive. Of course, in the beginning, we had to sell the concept but along the way and now, they're given their support, which only grew throughout. They gave us the carte blanche with everything. They were super trusting and when they saw the first results, they were even more even more trusting too.

Are there any plans to make a future movie?
Fabian: Yes there are but not a sequel based on the same thing. This one stand alone because of the positive psychology this year but we've talked about already making a sequel with a new concept. I want to give back by doing something different and to show another angle on snowboarding and hopefully inspire people to go snowboarding. Or even for them to take a seven-minute break from their stressful day.

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