A sold-out theatre in Salt Lake City, 80 degrees outside, and nobody cared about the weather — the world premiere of the Girl Winter Film Tour proved that ski films are changing, and audiences are here for it.
The tour, produced by women-led creative studio Moonrise, packs five films ranging from shorts to the feature-length "Winter Elements," a two-year project about women across the whole ski industry. After Salt Lake City, the tour rolls on to roughly 50 stops across North America, including Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and New York City.
The lineup refuses to fit one mould. "VIVID" follows a crew of friends at Silverton Mountain in Colorado where poor snow means fewer jaw-dropping lines — and the film doesn't hide it, choosing instead to capture the simple joy of skiing with your girlfriends. "Theory of Butter" is a quirky, Wes Anderson-flavoured romp through Colorado's San Juan Mountains by bike, raft and skis in search of a mythical substance called "Butta." At the heavier end, "Biscuits" follows Nat Segal and Erin Spong over two seasons as they push into bigger terrain and talk honestly about mentorship, the business of pro skiing, and the realities of performing while exhausted or on your period.
Then there's the record-setter: Mali Noyes skied all 93 lines in Andrew McLean's cult guidebook The Chuting Gallery in just 47 days, smashing the previous mark of five months.
The feature, "Winter Elements," widens the lens beyond athletes. It opens with a transgender cat driver at a small Pennsylvania ski area, then moves through photographers, ski patrollers, product developers, racers, avalanche forecasters and climate advocates. The point, as producer Iz La Motte put it on stage, is that women have always held these roles — now they're visible on screen and behind the camera.
Why should a traveller care? Because if you're booking a autumn film night or a winter trip, this tour is the best preview of where ski culture is heading. The Salt Lake City crowd was a mix of women and men laughing and cheering together — this isn't a niche event but something the wider ski community has clearly been waiting for. Catching a screening is a genuinely fun way to kick off the season, and it might also point you toward your next trip: Silverton Mountain and the San Juans both feature, and both make superb additions to any Colorado ski itinerary.
