From crime to the Arctic: ultramarathoner film debuts in Toronto

Tiberiu Useriu purged the demons of a violent childhood and a youth marked by crime through grueling races over ice and snow.

After nearly a decade in prison, the Romanian sought redemption on some of the world's most extreme routes.

His story is portrayed in the documentary "The Ultra Runner," which premiered Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Directed by Canadian Mila Aung-Thwin, the film follows Useriu, known as Tibi, as he faces days that test the limits of human endurance while reconstructing his past through dramatizations and interviews with people close to him.

Tibi, 52, and his brother Alin grew up in communist Romania, marked by poverty, dictatorship and the iron fist of a violent father.

After the 1989 revolution, Tibi emigrated to Western Europe, where he got caught up in crime until he was arrested and imprisoned in Germany.

After his release, Tibi rebuilt his relationship with his brother after years of estrangement, and found in extreme races a form of therapy and rehabilitation.

Tibi, who has completed the nearly 600-kilometer 6633 Arctic Ultra several times in frigid temperatures, maintains that what has driven him to run is the possibility of transformation.

"Every race changes you," he said in an interview with AFP on the eve of the premiere.

"Finishing a race... it's also a motivator for myself, and it shows that I can overcome and overachieve the last version of me into the next one," he said.

But for Tibi, opening up to the cameras wasn't easy.

"During my races and during those times, I'm in my own tunnel and I was basically ignoring the filmmakers, so I didn't really understand what was going on," he said.

"But it started becoming more and more difficult when they started digging deeper into the childhood stuff, and it was very tumultuous to relive those moments."

Alin added their story is shared by others who grew up under a brutal Eastern European dictatorship.

"It's the story of children that were raised in those times and that lived the same kind of trauma," he said.

For the brothers, who lead an NGO dedicated to environmental and social projects, the central message of their story is one of second chances and change.

"Even when you have a hard childhood, even when you have a hard past, you get a second chance at becoming someone else," Tibi said. "And there's goodness in that."