Resilience: The Els Visser Story
Resilience
This documentary is more than just a film. It’s a personal story. My story. And at the same time, I hope, a story that reaches beyond myself.
In 2014, I was on a boat in Indonesia. It should have been a normal journey, an adventurous stopover in my life. But that night, everything changed. The boat sank. I ended up in the middle of the sea, in the dark, wondering if I would ever reach shore. It was a struggle for survival, with waves, fear, exhaustion—but above all, with myself.
That moment, those days, changed my life forever. I discovered a strength within me that I hadn’t known existed. A resilience that pulled me through the water, through fear, towards life. And when I returned to land, I realized: if I survived this, I can do so much more.
That realization set me on a path I’d never dared to dream of. The path to triathlon. To the world of elite sports. To a life where I would challenge myself again and again, sometimes fail miserably, but also experience what it means to push boundaries.
The documentary captures that journey. Not just the physical—the training, the competitions, the medals. But especially the inner journey. The search for balance, dealing with setbacks, and choosing again and again to keep going.
Resilience, at its core, is about something we all recognize. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a triathlete or not, whether you’ve experienced a shipwreck or some other kind of storm in your life. Everyone has moments when you think: I can’t do this. Everyone has situations where you’re challenged to the core. And it’s precisely then that you discover just how strong you can be.
What I hope is that this film shows that resilience isn’t an exceptional quality, but something we all carry within us. Sometimes hidden, sometimes forgotten, but always present.
With love,
Els
