Who Knew Off-road Racing Could Be This Beautiful?

Photography by Fredrik Jönsson

Digital technology has been incredible for filmmakers, helping to capture and distribute an absolute explosion of stories from around the world. Petrolicious certainly wouldn’t be around, nor would films that depict the otherworldy Peugeot 2008 DKR testing in the Sahara desert ahead of the now South America-based Dakar rally. One such short clip was put together by Fredrik Jönsson—here are his words on the project.

Filming in desolate and remote locations is always a challenge, and filming in the Sahara is no exception. My name is Fredrik Jönsson, and I run a production company called Redhouse Media, focusing on promotional films for the car industry.

For this shoot I had Peugeot as a client, I was the director of photographer and the film was directed by Stephane Benini. We spent three days last December in the desert filming Peugeot’s Dakar race car.

Peugeot were running tests, and we were waiting for the car in the desert—which was demanding because we only roughly knew where it would pass! During the first day, the car was doing 30 km loops; the second day, 100 km loops; and for the last day, 300 km loops. So we didn’t get too much time to film the car! However we got to spend a lot of time in the Sahara, which is one of the most amazing environments: it’s harsh, but at the same time incredibly beautiful.

You can view Fredrik Jönsson’s work here, and on his Facebook page.