Iceland. A cold, rugged and forbidding landscape where powerful rivers plunge through bedrock gorges, over massive waterfalls, toward the sea. Director Hugo Clouzeau and a crew of French kayakers travel here to ask the question, “Why?”

“Why? Why do we do this?”

In the GoPro age, images of extreme feats flood our social media streams. We watch skiers drop into impossibly steep and narrow shoots. We follow jumpers in wing suits flying over mountains. We see climbers, slackliners, mountain bikers and paddlers doing things that appear to most people insane, but the action seems empty when we don’t understand the motivation behind it. “Why?” we ask. “Why do they do this?”

WHY, a short film from NRS and We Are Hungry, goes beyond the spectacle of extreme kayaking in search of an elusive answer.