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(sirens wailing distantly)
(heavy traffic noise)
I've always been really intrigued by watches.
At first, it was a cool way of telling time
and then my Mom, she had mentioned something
about, you know, tell-tale sign of a businessman,
good shoes, good suit, and a good watch.
Watches were something else, you know?
I couldn't always afford the watch.
I came into a mindset of saying if I wanted it
and I couldn't afford it, I would make it.
(train chugging)
(train whistle blowing)
How do you measure a year?
How do you measure a life?
What comes to mind?
Seasons, political events, a global pandemic?
Or do you think of calendars, months, and dates?
(gentle string music)
Horologists study time.
Their job lies in the calculation, measurement,
and the sure prediction of time passing
in hours, minutes, and seconds.
Our ancestors kept time by measuring the seasons.
Dates of eclipses and the movement of celestial bodies.
Yet none of these things truly indicate
the inevitable passing of time.
From a baby's first breath
to the last beat of a loved one's heart.
From the moment you are present tense
to the moment you are past.
The more we study time, the more ethereal it becomes.
To be alive is to feel time passing.
We humans know that one day we will die
and against this knowledge comes the need for purpose.
How will we use the time we are given?
This is the story of the rebels of horology,
who push the boundaries of the timekeeping invention
and use time to create meaning
from the pieces of their lives.
(watches ticking) (heart beating)
(metal shutter opening)
(door opening)
I definitely feel like an anomaly
in this world we live in.
Early on, I'd describe myself
as a mechanic from the 17th century.
When clients come into this workshop,
they often feel as though they've stepped into another era
and it definitely feels that way.
The work that I do is all from eras past.
(gentle music)
The displays of all of my special things
were under my bed, my kind of safe space.
It was kind of dark, very quiet.
I hung little mirrors from strings.
Those would catch the light
and you'd see little reflections and things.
I had a large collection of music boxes, magnets,
compasses, mirrors, old springs.
You know, anything I found, a little sparkly thing.
I would just keep those things.
(music box chiming)
Music boxes, they clearly have a very delicate set of pieces,
and there's very specific rules that make them work.
Something that, every time, it was repeatable,
it was predictable.
And, you know, when I wound it up,
as long as I didn't impose on it
or break any of the rules, it always functioned the same.
And that to me had a lot of significance.
My mother suffers from mental illness.
That made things hard.
There was a lot going on within my home
and my family dynamic that I didn't really understand.
There wasn't much that I knew for certain.
That's why the mechanical things made much more sense to me.
They were predictable.
They basically never failed to repeat the same thing
as long as all the components and pieces were in place.
But people aren't like that.
And my home wasn't like that.
(lathe scraping)
I think one thing about the work that I do and horology
is, it takes grit.
It is probably one of the most difficult things
that you can decide to do with your life,
and if I didn't have all of my childhood
to kind of prepare me, I don't think I would've made it.
(manual machine winding)
(distant pulsing machine sound)
(footsteps on forest floor)
I feel very free in the forest.
When I was three, four years old,
I used to come with my parents.
The nature gives you quietness.
When you are ready to explode, you come here
and you cool down.
(distant traffic)
(crowd conversations)
Hi Philippe, happy birthday.
Thank you.
Hello, young man.
It goes too fast. Time goes too fast.
Suddenly you are here at 71, you went too fast.
(fireworks crackling) (crowd cheering)
(wind whistling)
I was born here, in the Vallee de Joux.
We have a lot of space, a lot of forest.
You live with the nature and the season.
Watchmaking arrived here around 1750.
You have to realise that in winter,
the Vallee de Joux was really closed.
So they were stuck in the snow in the winter.
Beside milking the cow morning and night,
was nothing to do.
And they organized, little by little,
in every farm you had a workshop.
That's why we say Vallee de Joux
is a cradle of complicated watchmaking.
(gentle music)
I never invented anything.
I took inspiration from what was done before me.
My idea was to carry this nice way of making watches.
I think he's the greatest,
if you want to meet 350 years of Swiss watchmaking art,
you just have to meet Philippe Dufour.
He's the accumulation of 350 years of knowledge.
He works in the quality, in the speed,
like in the 16th century.
Who can afford to work today like in the 16th century?
I mean, it's just genius.
There's only one. It's Philippe Dufour.
At the beginning, when I explained
to some watchmaker friends
what I was planning to do,
they were laughing at me, saying,
we don't do that anymore, polish by hand
and beveling, we don't do that anymore.
In factory now, it's machine and everything.
I said, no, no, this is my line.
(gentle music)
To make one watch, it's about 2,000 hours. One year.
I always say, the cemetery are full of secret.
Every time you have a retired watchmaker,
it's a page of the watchmaking book which are missing.
And you will never replace it.
(music continues)
(sirens wailing distantly)
(gentle music)
I was a strange child.
People thought I was slow because I didn't speak
and it's primarily because I wasn't really big on people,
I didn't like people, I like to observe,
but I didn't trust people at a very young age.
And it's because of what I had seen.
(traffic noise)
As a child, your situation is what it is.
That's all you know.
(traffic noise)
(music continues)
He stood up, 12 months old,
and he drew from one end of the wall
to the other end of the wall.
And I thought, somebody's gonna get a spanking, but,
when I looked at it, I thought,
you know, there's something here.
There's something about this child that's special.
Very quiet, very focused, always thinking,
trying to figure out things.
I was too young to remember
a lot of the struggle that my Mom went through
but I saw it and I remember certain things.
(flames crackling)
I think the first time we were homeless
was 'cause somebody burned down our house.
With us in it.
We were going through a lot, you know,
homelessness here and there, and it was just a lot.
(fireball)
(tense music)
I mean, racism was sort of
one of those regular things growing up, you know.
When we lived in our car, my Mom slept
on top of my brother and I to keep us warm.
And my Mom made it digestible
because she always made us feel
like we were taken care of and protected.
(music continues)
In those times, I did what a mother had to do
to take care of my kids.
It's okay, you know, because they ate.
I didn't eat, but they ate, so.
You know, and then we played games.
Everything was a game because
all I wanted them to do was smile.
Raising an African American boy to try to be a man,
it's really hard.
I wanted better for my boys, I wanted more.
Intelligence and intellect was not readily
or normally associated with black skin.
It pissed me off then, it pisses me off to this day.
And I basically said I'm going to be an engineer
out of rebellion.
Rebellion against the stereotype.
I was very adept at playing chess when I was a child.
That's how I understand life strategy and people.
What does this move get to this move, to this move?
I live in the future, never the present,
but I realise I have to live in the present
to get to the future.
(gentle music)
Although in some sense I create time
I've never really felt the notion of time.
Since I was little it's been like that.
Time passed without passing.
My mind was elsewhere,
always elsewhere.
That hasn't changed.
The philosophy in my watches is the same one I live by.
To live in the present moment.
(gentle music)
My life started aged 30 with Eveline
because, until then, I was surviving
The years were going by without me living.
That's how I met Eveline, through my work
because she was working for a big watchmaking firm in Geneva
And there was something which can't be touched,
can't be seen,
can't be imagined.
So, what's happening today?
This is what I'm going to say
Eveline, will you marry me?
She was stable, unlike me, who was completely unstable.
I was missing that stability.
And she was missing the instability I had.
I think everyone awakens something in others.
Yes, yes!
Say it louder!
Louder!
Yes, yes!
Yes!
(crowd cheering)
We knew immediately that it was forever,
because it was forever.
And four years later, we were married.
Unfortunately, five years after meeting,
we found out she had cancer.
(glass smashing) (metal clattering)
I had a very, very bad accident
when I was 22 years old.
Hit the curb, rolled over, I was thrown out of the Jeep
and the Jeep, three tonnes, ended its roll on my back.
I should've died.
There is no reason at all I should be alive.
And I always remember when, many hours later,
I arrived at the hospital
and my parents were there
and that's when I broke down crying,
up till then, I was not.
And... Mum just looked at me and she said,
"It was not your time."
It was not time.
(gentle music)
My childhood lasted an eternity.
I was a very shy boy.
I didn't know how to interact
with people around me, of my age.
I'm an only child.
I was always with adults when I was a kid,
I didn't want to be with them.
I was a super creative kid
who didn't fit in
and desperately wanted to fit in.
(reflective music)
My father was of that upbringing
where children are there to be seen but not heard.
He would never do anything with me.
He wouldn't talk to me, he wouldn't ask me questions,
he wouldn't tell me, "I love you."
And I was overachieving all the time
to get his attention, and I never got it.
(reflective music continues)
Then he passed away on the 31st of December, 2001.
And I cried 12 seconds
because I was a big boy, I was successful,
I was making money.
I was where I'd never even expected to be in my life.
I was about to enter a big multinational company
like my Dad, I was interviewing with Nestlé,
I was interviewing at Procter & Gamble.
That's what normal people do,
you get a career and you work your butt off
to try and get that next promotion.
And luckily for me, I fell into watchmaking.
Watchmaking saved my life.
(surging pensive music)
Horologists study and work
with mechanisms that catalogue time.
We first discovered time through looking at the sky.
The sun, the moon, the movements of celestial bodies.
So you have your first sun dial,
just a stick in the ground,
that you could observe the shadow
as the sun went across the horizon.
And that's where that dial idea comes from,
this is the rotation of the Earth's axis.
You're watching that shadow fall,
it's falling in a circle.
This uninterrupted idea of time, full of time.
(music continues)
Time tells us we're trying to hold on to something.
We're trying to process, catalogue,
understand our existence here, account for it.
(music continues)
I'm an antiquarian horologist
and I specialize in the conservation
and restoration of antique automata mostly.
An automaton is a self-operating machine.
The kind that I work on are mechanical,
they're clock- or watch-based driven objects
so instead of having this equal interval oscillations
for regulating time, you'd have that same energy
transmitted to movements of the object.
(bird chirping)
(ethereal music)
He's running out of air.
My job is definitely about being a steward
and a caregiver to these things.
Putting back a bird beak, re-feathering,
giving them eyes again, restoring their lungs.
This is reversing time in a way, you know?
These are the degradation,
the natural aspects of the world falling apart,
which repeat through time.
Objects facilitate and elicit empathy.
I think about this object now,
I'm having a direct and tangible connection
to those craftsmen in the past,
and I'm actively working within this lineage,
this thread that exists throughout time.
I'm very interested in how we used these objects
as a way to interpret and decipher
the big problems in our universe.
What is the nature of God?
What is the nature of our existence?
This, to me, really is probably one of the most fragile
and vulnerable windows into the human spirit.
(strident music)
I was an angry kid.
The insult was the fact that the world expected me
to be less and was not gonna give me help to be more.
(loud train passing)
I was angry, but I used that anger as motivation.
(cameras clicking) (people calling out)
- Tell me how it feels
to be receiving the Virtuoso Award
for the Santa Barbara...
- This is awesome, I mean, look, as an actor,
one of the big things that you grow up thinking about is...
Acting is taking care of itself
in a grand way right now but also,
I have to keep my finger on the pulse because it can slip
and I'm at a monumental moment in my career
where it can be the game-changing year.
Yeah, man.
Your next job could be your greatest hit
or your greatest flop.
There's no sense of just ease there, right?
But I also am used to hardships far more than ease.
So I don't know anything else.
Yeah, man!
So why choose this pathway?
Because just that, I choose it, it's mine to choose.
There's a bigger mission.
Acting and being on TV, that's cool,
but what are you doing with it?
If you're only out to get something for yourself,
I'm not interested.
So with watchmaking, I'm still very much on my journey
of trying to figure out
what I can contribute to the world of horology.
But at the same time, establish the legacy
that contributes something back,
not only just to me and my family, but to Black culture.
I found something I could attach myself to
that could help me walk down the path of the bigger mission.
And, you know, there's something more important
than just catching a buck at the end of the day.
(gentle music)
He was 14 when he graduated high school,
that's when he started to pursue
his interest in the watches.
He would just go to his room and sit on the floor
and just draw and draw in this book he has.
I call it the Bible.
Every time he had a free moment,
he would just go in his room, shut his door,
he's just drawing, drawing.
And when he came out one day with this amazing book,
he said, "Look, Mom, this is what I've been working on."
I said, "You have got to be kidding."
From then on, we're just trying
to figure this watch game out.
I hope that this thing comes to fruition for him.
Within the next two years
he can look at his wrist and say, this is Hodge.
You know, I want him to say, this is Hodge.
I wanna be wearing one and say, "My baby did this."
"This is my baby."
This is a very difficult, arduous task
and it's something that is near impossible to a degree,
especially since I'm American, like
I'm not in Switzerland
with access to everything right around the corner,
I gotta piece it together, but I don't really care.
This is about proving something to myself.
This is fully rooted in passion for me.
I need to get this thing going
because I'm frustrated with being patient.
I'm tired of looking at my designs. I wanna hold them.
(pensive music)
A watch... is a piece of art.
Art has a soul.
The soul only can come from the fingers of man
and the finger get commands from the head.
The head is influenced by the heart.
So if the watchmaker, and to do this job,
he must be passionate about it,
if he's passionate, passion is love.
All this positive thinking goes into the watch
and then it is inside.
And when you have it on the wrist, it comes out.
The vibration. That's the art.
Philippe, he is the purest artist.
And he produces, I don't know, five watches per year.
I have a watch from Philippe, which is called Simplicity.
And I love the name Simplicity.
Because it's not simple.
It's extraordinarily complex, but it looks simple.
And that's the real quality.
(watches ticking)
(people talking in background)
My way of working, my life,
I've been completely different.
I'm a black sheep.
And the people that don't like it,
there is a lot of jealousy
because everybody knows each other, you know?
(gentle music)
To mesh with other people isn't easy.
Especially in this watch world, you know?
Because it's a world with so much arrogance
and I don't follow that.
Just over a month ago it was announced
that Philippe Dufour will do a Simplicity Anniversary model
with a brand new case back design.
I have the privilege of selling the absolutely first,
number 00, Philippe Dufour Simplicity Anniversary
at one million, one hundred thousand,
going once, going twice...
(gavel banging)
(gentle applause fading away)
I receive one or two mails per week.
They want to put a down payment and I say,
"Thank you very much for the interest
but actually I don't have anything available."
It's sad, but that's the way it is.
But commercially, everything is marvelous, you know.
I still keep some orders for my next life.
The negative is that I'm still alone, you know?
Since many years, I try to be the team and I fail.
With a mechanic problem,
you can always find a way to solve the problem,
but human problem, it's very difficult.
(mournful music)
He must transmit so that he doesn't die.
And he can only not die if somebody takes over
and maintains the soul, the philosophy of him.
(gentle music)
People know that they have
a finite time on Earth.
What do you do with that short time you're given?
(music continues)
Some people wanna live for the moment,
some people wanna change the world,
some people wanna make one thing, one beautiful thing
and leave that behind to be appreciated.
Not for them necessarily, but for the future.
(music continues)
I think for 10 years we lived more than
most couples do in a lifetime.
It was the worst moment of our lives.
At the same time, it made us live for the best moments.
For 10 years it was phases of
chemotherapy, hellish treatments, operations.
I have a great ability for not remembering the worst moments.
(distant bird calling)
We were not counting the days.
We took things as they came, for as long as they lasted.
(somber music)
It changes the way you see the world.
It changes everything.
I couldn't let go, I had to be strong,
whatever was going on outside.
A big brand approached me to ask if I would
develop a movement for them, very complicated.
It was a huge amount of work.
I stopped my own work.
I stopped everything to work for this big brand.
We worked heart and soul for a year.
The moment we were going to get paid,
we were told, "Ah, well, listen...
you've done the work, we don't need you anymore.
We will take your plans, we will take your name
and we'll make the watches ourselves."
They wanted their name on the watch
plus all the plans for the watch,
for nothing.
And a war began,
a war which led me to bankruptcy.
That went on for three years.
I was stuck with a...
with a watchmaking firm who wanted my blood.
The cancer wanted my wife's blood.
Having been at the top,
I was now at the bottom.
No salary.
No nothing.
Only death all around.
Death everywhere.
I spoke to Eveline about what I should do.
I'd always dreamed of becoming independent.
Should I now become an independent watchmaker?
I spoke to her a lot about what I should do;
I wanted her support.
She said, "Listen,
we only have one life..."
(stifling tears)
(somber music)
She said, "Go for it.
Pursue your dream because we don't have our whole lives
to realise our dreams."
(music continues)
(water lapping)
It was devastating when my Dad passed away.
And then a year later, I would see any movie
where a son would lose his Dad
and I would start sobbing in front of the screen.
(water lapping)
I thought I was angry with my father
and I realised that I actually was sad for him.
He didn't have the upbringing, he didn't have the keys.
Had no idea how to communicate
and I was just pushing back and angry.
And so it just flared up and went on for years.
And if I have one regret in life, it's that one.
I can't do anything about it.
I can't go back.
I didn't have the keys myself.
I am...
Yeah, I'm really sorry about that.
(ethereal music)
(distant church bells)
That's when the notion of regret emerged.
Because before I was living the life
I thought people would think was successful.
And that was completely pointless
because I just, I hated my life.
I had no empathy in those days.
To protect myself, I'd surrounded myself
with an ironclad wall around me.
I was this cold son of a bitch.
The little boy who was super creative
had become a marketeer.
And I met these incredible independent watchmakers
who were penniless and happy and proud.
And I thought, I wanna be like them.
I have to create what I believe in.
And I'm supposed to go for a board meeting to New York
where I'm actually going to defend the budget
of the whole new manufacturer for Harry Winston,
which was a very big budget.
And I realise it's now. That's it.
I have to take the leap.
And so I basically tendered my resignation
before the board meeting to everybody's shock
and told them, "You gave me a contract I can't sign,
I was planning to leave at some point.
I cannot sign that contract.
So I'm actually gonna leave way earlier than I planned
and you're gonna have to let me free."
I needed that emotional part.
I needed that human part, I needed that romantic part.
And that's what I found in watchmaking.
It was the history of humanity.
Imagine, 700 years ago,
some geniuses took some steel and brass
and transformed it into a machine
which actually counted time.
The energy was transformed into a beat
and that beat was transformed into timekeeping.
(components clicking rhythmically)
A watchmaker is God.
A watchmaker assembles three, four, five, 600 tiny components,
takes weeks to do that,
and at some point, when the barrel is armed,
he will let it go and suddenly the heart starts beating.
We are all creating creatures
which come to life in our hands.
The skills that it took to create these things
in the past, it would take a person a lifetime
to perfect those skills and it took several people
perfecting several skills
to make something so beautiful
that would last centuries later.
There's definitely this feeling, this desire
that you will make something that will be utilized
and enjoyed into the future,
past your finite time on Earth.
(gentle machine sounds)
I remember when I was very small,
when I came into the workshop I couldn't make a sound
because he needed silence.
(lively, but obscured orchestral music)
I could see he was stamping his feet and saying,
"No, it's no good."
Or he sighed a little and said, "Good, I've managed it."
There was the smell of the pipe and classical music.
He's really in a trance until he succeeds at his piece.
He stops breathing.
Then he adjusts something and then... (sighs).
He breathes, he relaxes.
Most of my childhood was spent in Beavais
60 or 70 kilometers from Paris.
Then everything got turned upside down in a good way,
because my Mum met the Dad I have today.
My Mum and I missed our metro exit,
so we came out late and we took the lift to get
out of the metro station
and we bumped into him.
I was 3 and turned to him and said...
"You're handsome! Do you want to be my Dad?
Because I don't have a kind one and all my friends have a Dad."
And she was high like that and she say,
"Do you want to be my father?"
You know. I say, "Yes, why not?"
And then.
And he looked at me and then said,
"If that's what your Mum wants."
And then my Mum got annoyed and said,
"Daniella, we don't say things like that."
We moved here, then I carried on my schooling in Switzerland.
But it wasn't very easy because...
it was a bit like...
the two black women who've come to steal
Philippe Dufour's fortune.
In fact, in La Vallée it's a bit like a cult,
meaning everything is said and
everything is known and if you aren't from La Vallée,
you're not in the clan.
A foreigner who comes to live here, has to integrate.
I've lived through it and so has my Mum.
You can't hide yourself away.
I am mixed-race, my Mum is black
and I've experienced racism here.
It was a battle to find our place
and now they accept us.
(crowds talking in background)
(distant traffic)
I came in yesterday from Los Angeles,
I'm still a little jet lagged because right about now
in LA I'm pretty sure it's nine or 10 o'clock,
something like that.
What's happening, everybody, this is Aldis Hodge
reporting live from Dubai Watch Week in Dubai.
This is the best place to come to learn,
to understand because you'll see how watches...
I've been living on planes for the last few months.
I'm kind of working on autopilot at this point.
My Mom and my sister are out here on this journey,
this horological journey with me.
Brianna.
Brianna. Come here real quick.
So... this is the little sister right here, this is Brianna.
Say hello to the people.
- Hello!
(laughing)
- Here, Mom, can I give you this?
- Yes. - Thank you.
Oh, it's cold! - You got this.
- Oh, Jesus, it's cold.
Yeah, Mom, I'm not worried.
- I know. I'm so proud of you.
- Mom, come on! - I am proud of you.
- Hi, how are you?
- [Interviewer] Talk about what you're doing,
sketching watches and designing.
- When I was 21, 22, I started sketching concepts
and you know, concepts for different companies,
so I would reach out.
And I kept trying to design for other people
and I kept getting nos, a lot of nos.
So I said, you know what?
I'm going into business for myself.
So it's a very difficult industry to enter into.
But I think the difficulty is what carves out innovation.
It's supposed to be difficult
so we can think differently,
so we can give you a completely new experience,
that's our job.
To challenge the difficulties.
(city noise)
What's happening, everybody, this is Aldis Hodge,
I'm out here of course
working on the fantastic "Black Adam."
I get to play Hawkman, who is fantastic,
but this brother is ripped.
You know, preparing for "Black Adam," it's crazy,
like, training and getting swole up and eating.
It's a heavy schedule for the rest of the year
but you know, it's all manageable.
Still maintaining the watch production,
I still have things to design.
And with watches there's just so many things that,
so many little minute things that are big things.
That you have to address
in order to make it synergistic, so.
(fork clattering)
Nine damn eggs, nine eggs. It's a lot of food.
(plate clinks)
(bag zipping)
(light switches)
I designed my packaging,
I designed the ins and outs and everything
so finding somebody to make my packaging is difficult.
It should be representative of your product,
wholly and fully.
The quality has to speak
to the quality of the watch inside, you know?
So, finding artisans to do that kind of work
hasn't been the easiest process
but this one guy I'm really, really excited
about working with who decorates wood
and makes wood furniture and he's a freaking genius.
So we are working old school today.
(indistinct)
'Cause I know last time we were talking about
either this or talking about the drawer.
- What I was getting at here is just, like, a mechanical lock.
It's a little bit like finicky, but see it's got that pop?
- The way you've even done this,
to me it's like I see this and it's just interesting.
- This is part of why I copied that.
'Cause I was thinking, like, can we do that thing?
You know?
- 'Cause it was becoming so that...
- I see what you did there!
I was like, well, that's an opportunity, you know?
- See, the man is smart, he took my logo.
He took my logo, he worked it into the...
So here, if this right here was actually the component,
it can be a latch under here, that is holding...
My logo is a skeleton key because skeleton key
was devised to bypass any lock
and that's what this entire company is for me.
I want it to stand as a representation
to any child who has a dream that people are deferring
to say, "I can use my mind, that's all I need
to bypass any of the world's locks."
Do what you wanna do
in spite of all of the difficulties in your way.
(interior of car driving)
(very distant dog barking)
We survive for the people who are having a hard time,
which was my wife.
(mournful music)
She needed someone strong by her side.
I wanted to protect her.
But it was impossible to protect her.
either from the cancer or the bankruptcy.
You can't do anything and if you think you can,
it will haunt you day and night.
(music continues)
Life is love.
(music continues)
When your other half dies
you die with her.
(music continues)
That's when I realised the present moment is important
and that's how it all began.
(dramatic music fades in)
- The markets down by almost half...
- It's gotten bad. - And if you thought
the markets couldn't get any worse,
you may be in for a rude awakening.
- Overseas indexes plunged this morning,
Japan down nearly 10%.
It was 2008, during the financial crisis,
and in the newspapers, on the radio, on television,
they were always talking about the stock markets,
numbers, just numbers.
And then I thought, it's not serious, because
if just one number holds fast and stays up, life continues.
And that's what my Upside Down watch represents.
(tense music)
There's only one message I want my watches to have:
"Live in the present moment."
(music continues)
(watch ticking)
The face of the Upside Down
shows the time in its current place.
So, in fact, you can only read the current time
and if you see the past and future time,
they're upside down.
The past is there, the future is there,
but we pay them less attention.
(music continues)
(music becomes more positive)
I think craft is really what makes us human.
We've become so far removed from tactile, tangible craft
that it's hard for us to actually understand
how things work.
I'm working on a series of 10 automata,
it's based on medieval bestiaries
and illuminated manuscripts.
What's interesting is, when I did the snail automaton,
people were more fascinated with the shell off,
of actually seeing the mechanism working,
I think because we don't have a relationship
to those mechanics.
The most fascinating thing is actually knowing
that it's all just brass and steel
which actually makes it magical.
The overlap between magic and horology,
it goes back a long way.
With automata, there's this reflection of our desire,
you know, to live on.
We have this, I think, vulnerability to wish
that things will last forever and they won't,
it's part of our human condition.
(music continues)
(rushing jet sounds)
There's something weird which happens in the world.
When you start oscillating on a very specific wavelength,
most people don't hear it,
and then suddenly, you don't know why,
somebody will pick up on it
because he or she has got the same wavelength.
I'm just sending my sonar out.
The HM4 Thunderbolt is inspired by my childhood.
Most of all my HMs are my childhood.
I used to make model aeroplanes a lot when I was a kid.
So it's basically two reactors of a plane
held together in the center,
you've got the balance wheel working.
It looks like more or less a plane on your wrist.
It was the most crazy piece I'd ever done in my life.
I remember holding the prototype in my hand
six months before we presented to anybody, going,
"Nobody's ever gonna buy this, guys."
And now I'm gonna commit suicide, basically,
with a product which I think nobody's gonna buy.
I go to Basel Fair, present it to our retailers,
exactly what I expected happened,
meaning they're all looking at it, they're,
"Wow, do you have something else?"
And then a miracle happens.
The media talk about it, luckily the internet exists,
the blogs talk about it because it's completely nuts.
Then suddenly emails start coming in,
the phone starts ringing.
Retailers who had not ordered the piece going,
"Do you still have that weird, plane-looking watch?"
I'm like, "Yes."
"There's actually a guy in the store wants to buy it."
And the piece which the most terrified me
is actually our biggest success.
Most watch collectors or most any normal person
would look at it and go, you must be insane.
But I just needed 25 people a year
who had the means and were as crazy as me.
In the middle of these billions of people
who don't understand what we're doing,
there will be one person who will resonate.
That's incredible. When somebody gets what you're doing.
(ethereal music)
(cows mooing)
Because my father was a watchmaker
I would often see him at work concentrating.
I could see his passion which he would try to convey to people
and I said to myself, "Yes, I want to do this job."
He tried to dissuade me,
saying, "No, it's not the job for you."
I said, "Come on, it's not for you.
It's an old profession, blah, blah, blah."
And during two years where I was pushing her
to see if it's really what she wanted to do, you know?
And after two years I say, "Okay,
if you really want to do that, let's do it."
I was not prepared to accept his "no" because I knew
that it was what I wanted to do
and nothing else, so I was determined.
I'm not an easy character either.
Already in this world
of independent watchmakers,
it's one or two women, not many.
Of course, that's first difficulties, then, second,
she's not white, okay.
But I think every problem she has to solve
make her stronger, you know?
And she has a strong character to do that.
I see him as a man and at school they see him
more as a living god!
Many people use the word "god" in terms of watchmaking.
Sometimes it's a bit hard because
I get the impression they think,
as I'm his daughter, I should know how to do
all the things he does.
But I'm in school to learn just like everyone else.
Yeah, my hope is that I can still work
so I can be beside her to follow what I have started,
it's all I need.
And we can change the brand
with Philippe Dufour and Daughter.
Probably, why not?
(pensive music)
There are many times that I wanted to stop
my pursuit of this.
Not because I actually wanted to stop,
because I feared embarrassment of not being able
to do what I said I was gonna do.
Greubel Forsey was one of the first companies
that I started studying, which inspired me to design.
Robert Greubel is literally the first watchmaker
that ever expressed any support
and belief in me in this industry.
So honestly, I kind of carried that
with me through the years.
Everybody told me no for all these years
and then the first person to tell me yes
is from the very first company
that inspired me to do what I wanted to do.
I'm sorry, but hello, that's the universe
trying to knock you on your head, saying,
the hell with these other people,
do what you gotta do.
(tense music)
(music continues)
We're headed to the Greubel Forsey factory
to go meet with Robert's business partner Stephen.
(hopeful music)
It's like a kid growing up who loves basketball
and then all of a sudden he's got, like,
you know, Magic Johnson
giving him a tour of the Staples Center,
you know what I'm saying?
It's that kind of deal.
(vehicle door closing)
It is cold... Very cold.
- You know, Aldis, his passion, his energy,
is fantastic because for him it's totally consuming.
Often with watchmakers it is.
You know, some people say it's a bit like a virus.
Once you get in, it's something you can't leave it alone
because there are so many aspects to it.
- Bonjour. - Bonjour.
What other new things can I see?
- So, let's see, I don't know if...
- And then you can see the passion,
it's the passion that's driving.
It's not just to make a business.
- Good to see you. - How are you doing?
Very good, yeah? Good to see you.
It's been a while since we've had...
You've been busy.
- Yeah, I stay busy.
- Mm, yeah. - Between this.
- He contacted Robert with some idea
for a design of a watch
and then Robert picked up on that, thought,
you know, there's something here.
He's not copying something existing.
There's really something different,
there's a creative angle there
which would be really interesting to work with.
- This is primarily where we're at.
- Mhmm.
I see it, yeah.
Force constant...
- Yeah, okay, so yeah.
So you're taking it easy, then,
for the first piece, then?
- Yeah, exactly. - Nothing too complicated.
His allyship is priceless.
His boost of confidence
is a big part of why I am where I am today.
You know, part of it was like, if he believed in me,
you couldn't tell me nothing.
(city noise)
You know me, I'ma just be honest, I'm tired.
I mean, we just wrapped up production on "Black Adam."
Back into the third season on "City on a Hill" right now,
we're shooting this week.
We got WatchTime New York this week,
so it's a work weekend.
To say I'm tired is an understatement, as you see.
(laughs)
I finally have a non-working prototype in my hands
of two years' worth of work now, I think.
Let's see.
All right.
She's a beauty.
Look, it's my baby.
As you can see.
The piece unique dial, the motif that I chose,
there's this thing, it's called
the Egyptian "Book of the Dead."
And I saw a page as I was going through the book
that for me, it was just pure art.
I love African history.
So when it comes to this,
for me it is a standing representation of elegance
and class and eloquence in art, theory, academia.
All of these things that are tied to my culture
that we don't get credit for,
we don't get publicly acknowledged for.
And the whole point of watchmaking for me
is to represent what I believe
is the beautiful truth of my people.
It's storytelling through the wrist.
You know, a lot of people told me, "Don't do it,
it's gonna be hard."
You want me to not do something
because it's going to be hard?
That is the dumbest thing in the world!
Like, everything is hard
but that's where you find yourself, in the challenge.
It's more than just making a product to me,
it's a vehicle that I use
to travel through my life
and understand what life is.
(gentle string music)
I've always been fascinated by things which fly.
I'm drawn to the sky.
I think I'm drawn to things
which others are not.
I notice the imperceptible.
I think I've had a lucky star above my head
which has protected me.
I had the incredible fortune of meeting Flavia
and the meeting was almost premeditated.
Before passing away, Eveline said,
"You're going to meet someone.
Maybe even someone who will give you a child."
I didn't believe her, especially given the disastrous state
I saw myself heading towards.
But life is like that.
I'm 45 years old
and the idea of becoming a mother,
because I hadn't met the right person by that point,
I wasn't dreaming about it.
And then all of a sudden I meet Ludovic,
who was coming through a very difficult time in his life.
We got on so well that we said to each other
the only thing that would make it more perfect is a baby.
We let nature take its course
and it happened.
For me it’s really a miracle of the universe.
I’m sure there is a mystical energy
which follows, it follows people.
Everything is planned, already programmed.
Her friend gave her two
gynecologists’ addresses in Geneva.
Flavia calls them and one of them proposes an appointment.
And she says to her, "I have an
appointment for you on 13 March 2018."
And that was the date of the anniversary of Eveline’s death.
We went to the gynecologist
and we found ourselves in the road and the building
of the famous doctor who took care of Eveline.
And, as if it wasn’t enough to find ourselves on the same floor
we were in the same corridor with two doors.
The door on the right was the oncologist
and the door on the left was the gynecologist.
On the right is the door to death,
on the left the door to life.
And we chose the door to life.
(sweeping orchestral music)
I work for myself,
to my rhythm.
In the morning I am happy to go to work
and I’m happy to go back to my wife and child.
It’s wonderful.
I never expected to be here,
either professionally or personally.
And now for the first time in my life, I'm scared.
I never used to be scared.
There was no boundary, I just pushed
and I could die, it's okay.
And now it's like, now I'm scared of losing what I have.
In every sense.
(rolling waves)
I found a place where I'm good at
and it just makes me feel good, it makes me feel alive.
This more or less unhappy childhood
is fueling an incredible adulthood.
And that's what I'm realizing, what's happening now.
Life was so much easier and simpler
before I had a family.
But I was a machine.
What Tiffany and the family brought me
is that I feel human for the first time.
- It was already one of his great strengths,
is to be genuine, as in, he's not gonna lie.
He doesn't know how to do that.
But it's a great thing,
it's always going to be straightforward.
I think now he has the empathy to go with it
which make him look less of...
an asshole?
And more of somebody who's willing to share his ideas
with a lot of generosity.
And that's who he is, actually,
a very, very generous person.
(gentle orchestral music)
- I shall give you this.
- Okay.
- And close your eyes, keep them closed
'cause you have a tiny wrist.
Let's see.
(humming)
Yes. Perfect.
- Is this the final reveal?
- Yes, so this is just a prototype, but...
- It's okay.
(Aldis singing a fanfare)
Yes.
Here we go.
Oh my God. The detail is amazing.
- How does it feel for you
to finally have something to hold?
- I see my baby, I see Aldis.
I see 18-month-old Aldis here.
I see, I see that wall he was scribbling on
and I see the artwork.
Aldis kept pursuing what he wanted to do
and he's doing it.
And he did it on his own, and so we, you know, I,
I was so happy for my baby because he did it, you know?
I'm sorry, but he...
- You okay, Mom?
- Yeah, I'm okay but, you know, it's sad
because nobody helped him, you know?
Nobody would help and they just kept
shutting them doors on you.
So we kept pushing and pushing and pushing
and we're here now.
We're here, world, and he's here.
So, you know, welcome my son A. Hodge Atelier.
Here it is. Save up your coins 'cause we're here.
- Mom!
Really, Mom?
- Yes, save them coins!
Yes, so I'm proud. I'm just really proud, you know.
(gentle music)
(rolling waves)
Now life is beautiful.
And I appreciate it all the more after what I have been through.
I lost one love, I found two more.
I’ve got a strong belief in the beauty of things
and the power of human beings.
I still have a lot of pleasure doing what I'm doing.
You know, every time a watch is finished
it's like a buzz, you know?
And if that watch can give pleasure at end of the world,
the circle is closed.
(music continues)
I'm making something that, with the intended purpose
of it outliving me, outlasting me.
So that it can continue to have the conversation
that I started today.
And we measure our lives by numbers,
accomplishments, milestones in our life.
Timekeeping gives us a tactile way
to measure our existence here.
Everything we make and everything we do
is really a reflection of what we've been through
and what we have learned.
The journey of why we do what we do
is actually more important than what we do.
The decisions we've taken in life,
the stands we've taken, the dreams we have, and we've had.
Everything we've sacrificed to get there.
(music builds)
(pumping sound)
(watch mechanics)
If you die and 10 minutes before you die,
you can look in the back and see two traces.
One trace of love
and one trace of passion in your job,
then you have the impression, wow, I did something.
That means I have given back what life has given me.
And before leaving, I give back!
That's success!
(sweeping orchestral music)