a spectacular video of free-style mountain biking in the Saint-Michel prison
Antoine Villoni made an “urbex” video in the disused Saint-Michel prison in Toulouse. We see this experienced cyclist strolling with his mountain bike in the long corridors of this space. The result is impressive. Interview with Antoine Villoni.
“The main idea is to make people discover a site and also share my passion for cycling”. Antoni Villoni is an accomplished athlete. A mountain bike specialist, he produces “projects”, videos, which he then shares with the general public. And if possible places that the general public does not know, or assumes that it does not have access to. Like the catacombs of Paris for example where this man who lives in the south-east of France also made a video.
This time, Antoine Villoni wanted to go to a disused prison. This is called urbex (often photographic projects but also sometimes video projects). “I visited four throughout France and my choice fell on the Saint-Michel prison in Toulouse. This place has an incredible authenticity, it is little known, it is a magnificent area”.
“Shooting took place on December 11, 2021. We were a team of 6 people in total. We had to go fast and be discreet“says the mountain biker. The principle of urbex is not to ask permission from the authorities. “But we haven’t damaged anything, so there shouldn’t be a problem” explains Antoni Villoni, who is 29 years old.
“The shooting lasted 13 hours in total. Between 6:40 a.m. and 7 p.m.” he details. But this shooting required 3 months of work upstream. Because such a video requires a lot of work. During filming, Antoni Villoni had 5 different image sources: “I was equipped with three go-pro cameras on me. There was also a drone and a friend of mine who had a pole with a camera”. A making-of was also produced, visible on the Facebook page.
The video took three months to edit. Published on February 10, 2022, it now totals nearly 22,000 views. A real success for Antoni Villoni, who has nearly 2 million followers on his TikTok account. Either way, the result is spectacular.
The mountain biker has many projects still in mind (especially in the south-west of France), but he prefers to keep them secret for the moment. The better the surprise…