Second annual Girl Winter Film Tour reaches Basalt

Six short films. Six different perspectives on what it means to be a woman in the mountains. 

The Girl Winter Film Tour returns to the Roaring Fork Valley at 7 p.m. on Oct. 24 at The Arts Campus at Willits, and is expected to sell out.

After selling out six of seven venues nationwide, the Girl Winter Film Tour continues its second year. The groundbreaking lineup, aimed at redefining ski and snowboard cinema, features films centered on female and gender-nonconforming athletes.

“I think that’s what we really want to focus on, is the variety and depths of stories that we don’t necessarily see in ski media,” said Sierra Schlag, Japanese-American storyteller, former competitive skier, and tour co-founder.

This year’s cinematic lineup premiered on Oct. 9 in Park City, Utah. The tour runs through 33 stops and concludes Nov. 18 in Anchorage, Alaska. Each screening includes live music followed by a question and answer session with athletes and filmmakers.

“Every year, we see many of the same stories being told in the ski world,” Director Sara Beam Robbins said. “We’re trying to shift the industry narrative and create an inclusive space where everyone feels welcome and can celebrate all aspects of ski culture.”

Girl Winter Film Tour creators and founders of the production company Moonrise Creative are all skiers: Carbondale-based Schlag, Crested Butte-based Beam Robbins, Idaho-based Katie Cooney, and Iz La Motte.

Their collaboration began after meeting on the feature-length ski film “Advice for Girls” three years ago. Although they’re all settled in various locations, Schlag says that they work together remarkably well. Most of their meetings are by Zoom.

The idea for a short film festival emerged from their desire not to do another the feature-length film. 

“We knew we didn’t want to make another feature-length again, so we all went out and created three different short films about winter. We were like, we have these films, we want to show them to people,” Schlag said. 

With only 30 minutes of content between them, they decided to open submissions to other filmmakers for free while maintaining their female-centric platform. This led to their first full-length program, and they repeated that model for year two.

The 2025 film lineup for this region consists of “Mimic” (eight minutes), which is about skiing and burnout, “Queen of the Catskills” (15 minutes), which follows a Bronx teacher who discovers backcountry skiing as a way to process trauma, and “Dear Superhero” (14 minutes), which is set in New Zealand and examines how pregnancy influences a professional skier and mountain guide transitioning into the role of motherhood.

Next up is “Let My People Go Skiing” (18 minutes), which offers a fresh perspective on Alaska skiing from an Indigenous viewpoint.

“I think it’s just a story that’s never, ever been told, and when we think of Alaska, we think of heli skiing and all the big lines, and this is a very cool perspective and it doesn’t have to be about skiing those big lines,” Schlag said.

“Trails Still Blazing” (eight minutes), directed by La Motte, centers on an Olympic athlete that becomes a mother and how it impacts her relationship with skiing.

The Colorado-program concludes with “That One Friend,” directed by husband and wife team Beam Robbins and Grant Robbins, featuring Schlag and Waverly Chin. Shot over one weekend in Aspen’s historic Ashcroft, the film celebrates friendship and joy in the mountains. 

“We kind of wanted a film about friendship this year, and Sara thought of us when that pitch happened … every professional skier needs that one friend to remind them why they started skiing in the first place and it doesn’t have to be so serious, and it’s actually we go skiing for fun with our friends,” Schlag said. “I think that’s the note that we want to leave everyone with.” 

There is one additional film, “Glitter,” (five minutes) only screening for the Midwest and East Coast premieres.

These diverse stories reflect the tour’s mission to showcase the full spectrum of women’s experiences in mountain sports, from professional athletes to everyday adventurers finding their place on the slopes.

“At its core, Girl Winter Film Tour is about bringing mountain communities — and beyond — together to connect, share stories, get excited for winter, and create lasting memories,” Cooney said. “There’s an electric energy at Girl Winter events. A lot of folks in our audience are seeing themselves represented in ski media for the very first time.”

Tickets range from $25 to $40 and are available for this all-ages seated show. Those under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. This is a Youth Arts pass show. For more information, visit girlwinterfilmtour.com/.