MAAD Films

French production studio based in Tarbes | Known for: The Hunt and Lunch Break | Focus: ski filmmaking, branded outdoor production and visual storytelling rooted in the Pyrenees.

Tarbes gives MAAD Films a production base at the foot of the Pyrenees

MAAD Films is a French audiovisual production studio based in Tarbes in the Hautes-Pyrénées. Its official presentation describes a company working with young creative talent across production and directing, while Baptiste Cibat is identified as the studio's producer. The location is an important part of the company's identity. Rather than operating from one of France's larger advertising or film centers, MAAD works close to the Pyrenean terrain that has appeared repeatedly in its outdoor projects. Its portfolio is not limited to skiing: current work also includes projects for the French Football Federation, Jeep, Attitude Manche and cycling-related productions. Skiing nevertheless provides one of the clearest examples of how the studio combines production logistics with action cinematography.

The Hunt turns the Pyrenees into a full scale ski chase

One of MAAD Films' most substantial documented snow projects is The Hunt - A Ski Chase Through the Pyrenees, produced for Norwegian sporting-goods retailer XXL. MAAD handled executive production on the project, working with an international production team on a deliberately playful concept built around a giant pink rabbit escaping a crowd of skiers. Professional riders included Alex Remonnay and Léo Fourcade, while the shoot moved through several locations in the French Pyrenees. The production required much more than filming a few ski lines: resort access, large numbers of participants, action sequences and multiple mountain locations had to be coordinated into one commercial film.

Grand Tourmalet Cauterets and Val d Azun become production locations

MAAD's own credits for The Hunt list Grand Tourmalet, Soulan, Cauterets and Val d'Azun among the locations used during production. Contemporary reporting also places the crew around La Mongie, Saint-Lary-Soulan and the Lac de Payolle area. Bagnères-de-Bigorre served as a practical base because several shooting locations could be reached from the town. The project therefore demonstrates a particular advantage for a Pyrenean production studio: local knowledge can become part of the production infrastructure. Mountain roads, resort operations, snow conditions and access all affect a ski shoot long before the camera starts recording.

The production even extended beyond France for part of its aerial work. Baptiste Cibat documented that a helicopter sequence was shot in Andorra because of French restrictions. That detail illustrates the kind of logistical flexibility required by mountain filmmaking, where national regulations, weather and terrain can change how a planned sequence is executed.

Lunch Break brings Lettuces into a smaller creative format

MAAD Films shows a different side of its ski work through Lunch Break, produced with the French freeski crew Lettuces. Released publicly in 2025, the short project moves away from the scale of The Hunt and toward a compact concept film. Antoine Prett directed the piece, Florian Cuzacq handled ski cinematography, and Baptiste Cibat is credited as producer. Antoine and Enzo Deffarge appear as the business characters at the center of the scenario, with Mathieu Pinson taking another featured role.

The concept deliberately mixes office imagery, humor and skiing instead of presenting a standard sequence of tricks. FREESKIER highlighted the film for its original tone and grainy visual treatment. That contrast with The Hunt is useful when defining MAAD Films: the studio can work on a large commercial mountain production with extensive logistics, then appear on a smaller rider-driven freeski project where visual style and a simple comic idea carry the film.

Action cinematography sits beside narrative and commercial production

MAAD's wider portfolio shows that the company is not structured exclusively as a ski-film studio. Its current projects include advertising, institutional work, sport and outdoor storytelling. The French Football Federation project Retour au Foot involved directing and production roles, while other portfolio work includes Jeep and the cycling film built around the Pyrenean story of Octave. This broader production base matters for ski projects because techniques developed outside snow sports can feed back into mountain filmmaking: scripted scenes, casting, art direction, sound design and commercial pacing can sit alongside specialized ski-camera work.

The Hunt makes that mixture especially visible. Its credits include conventional film roles such as director, assistant director, director of photography, production manager, styling and set decoration alongside a dedicated ski gimbal operator and professional riders. MAAD therefore works at the intersection between standard audiovisual production and the practical demands of filming athletes moving quickly through snow.

Baptiste Cibat and Florian Cuzacq anchor the production side

Baptiste Cibat is the clearest publicly documented figure behind MAAD Films. The studio's official contact page lists him as producer, while regional reporting around The Hunt identifies him as a founder of the company and places its roots in the Hautes-Pyrénées. Florian Cuzacq also appears repeatedly across the studio's portfolio in production and directing roles. On The Hunt, Cibat and Cuzacq are credited within the local production structure, while Lunch Break credits Cuzacq with ski cinematography and Cibat as producer.

This recurring partnership gives MAAD a more coherent identity than a simple production-services directory. The same names move between commercial work, outdoor filmmaking and ski projects, allowing the studio to maintain a recognizable local production network while bringing in additional directors, cinematographers, technicians and athletes according to the needs of each project.

From Norwegian advertising to grassroots freeski collaboration

The strongest reason to pay attention to MAAD Films within skiing is the range between its documented snow projects. The Hunt was made for XXL Norway and designed as a large commercial campaign, with action spread across multiple Pyrenean locations and a Scandinavian audience in mind. Lunch Break sits almost at the opposite end of the production spectrum: a short creative collaboration with Lettuces built around a small group of skiers and a deliberately strange visual idea.

Those projects demonstrate two useful production skills. MAAD can provide the organization required when an outside client brings a larger crew into mountain terrain, but it can also work close to the more informal culture of contemporary freeski edits. The studio's ski identity therefore comes less from releasing an annual feature film and more from being able to adapt film-production craft to different parts of the ski world.

Why MAAD Films matters to the Pyrenean ski media scene

MAAD Films does not yet have the extensive ski filmography of a long-running specialist studio, and its main business extends well beyond snow sports. Its relevance to freeskiing is more regional and production-focused. The company has demonstrated that the French Pyrenees can support ambitious commercial ski shoots while also participating in smaller independent projects built around young riders and creative filmmaking.

That makes MAAD particularly interesting as part of the growing Pyrenean media ecosystem. The mountains around Tarbes are not simply backgrounds in its work; they provide locations, local crews, resort relationships and a production environment the studio already understands. Projects such as The Hunt and Lunch Break show two different ways of using that knowledge. For viewers, riders and brands looking beyond the traditional Alpine centers of European ski media, the MAAD Films official portfolio documents a young French studio building its identity through outdoor production, commercial storytelling and freeski collaborations.