Candide Thovex’s One of Those Days 3: La Clusaz Ski Film, 2016

Ski tips, a snowy approach and a dark opening in the rock straight ahead: that is how French freeskier Candide Thovex pulls viewers into One of those days 3, the head-camera film he released on 23 February 2016. Shot around La Clusaz in the French Alps, it closes his One of those days trilogy, and its lines are so inventive that many viewers wondered whether it could be real.

One of those days 3: the film

Thovex published the film on his official YouTube channel, describing it as filmed in La Clusaz, France, and as the final part of the trilogy. Like the earlier episodes, it is shot from the skier’s point of view, so the ski tips stay in the frame while the terrain rushes towards the camera. Powder magazine wrote that the third volume “might be the best yet”.

The joke is in the title. For most people, skiing through gaps in the rock, over obstacles and through unexpected places would be a once-in-a-lifetime run. For Thovex, it is presented as just one of those days.

Who is Candide Thovex?

Thovex was born on 22 May 1982 in Haute-Savoie, the French Alpine department that includes Annecy and La Clusaz. He made his name in freestyle contests before turning to freeride and film:

• 2000: first Winter X Games gold, in Big Air at Mount Snow, Vermont.
• 2003: X Games gold in Superpipe at Aspen, Colorado.
• 2007: X Games gold in Slopestyle, with a record score of 95 out of 100.
• 2010: overall winner of the Freeride World Tour.

He came back from torn cruciate ligaments in his left knee in 2000 and his right knee in 2003. His 2012 film Few Words won Powder Awards for best male performance, best documentary and best cinematography, and in 2023 he launched his own brand, Candide Skis.

La Clusaz and the Aravis range

La Clusaz is a ski village in the Aravis Range of Haute-Savoie, about 32 km east of Annecy. Together with neighbouring Le Grand-Bornand it forms the Aravis ski area, with 220 km of pistes. The commune runs from 984 m up to 2,616 m, and its famous skiers include Guy Périllat, Edgar Grospiron and Régine Cavagnoud, as well as Candide and Mirabelle Thovex.

The terrain in the film is part of a professional production. Ride off-piste in the Aravis with a mountain guide and the right avalanche gear.

Watch the whole trilogy and more Thovex films

Thovex links to the first film and the second instalment in his own description, and watching them in order shows how the series grew. Other well-known Thovex films include Quattro (2015), made with Audi and viewed more than 7.5 million times on YouTube and Facebook, and Ski the World (2017).

For a city version of creative skiing, follow it with Clayton Vila and Cam Riley’s Boston street-skiing film.

Related reading

• Candide Thovex’s First-Person Ski Film: Trees, Tunnels and Unexpected Turns
• Léo Taillefer’s Line of the Winter: A 2015 Ski Film
• Ian McIntosh’s Alaska Fall During Paradise Waits
• Skiing a Volcanic Slope: The Snow-Free Film
• Boston’s Snowy Streets in Clayton Vila and Cam Riley’s Ski Film

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