Ski punks are go

The International Freeski Film
Festival introduces the new kids on
the slopes to the masses

SNOW FIEND: From Rage Films’ Pretty Good

by LUCAS WISENTHAL

Winter’s still a few months off, but this weekend, ski heads looking for a jump on the season will get one via celluloid at the third edition of the International Freeski Film Festival (IF3).

JF DuRocher and his partners, Félix Rioux and Doug Bishop, launched IF3 in 2007. The word “free” in the film festival’s name isn’t used gratuitously. The skiing showcased in the videos set to be screened is a dramatic departure from the more traditional fare of, say, a Warren Miller movie, chairlift gags, cheesy one-liners and all.

Freeskiing and new-school skiing, DuRocher says, are “skiing’s answer to snowboarding.” It all began in the late ’90s, he explains, with the rise of twin-tip skis—skis designed to travel backwards as well as forwards, and with a more forgiving flex pattern, allowing riders to negotiate terrain like halfpipes and handrails. “Obviously, skiers needed to get a little more loose,” he says.

As skiing morphed into something younger and punker, so too did the magazines and videos that cover it. Championing the sport’s “new school,” a title skiers adopted to describe their style, they took on a decidedly skateboarding- and snowboarding-inspired sensibility, which DuRocher isn’t ashamed to admit. Now, though, “freeskiing has definitely developed its own identity,” he says.

These days, companies like MSP Films, Poor Boyz Productions and a slew of others release videos that chronicle skiing’s unrelenting progression. “They document, year after year, what the sport is all about, and they create their own star system as well,” DuRocher says. And while some pros consistently kill contests, as in skateboarding and snowboarding, it’s the video dudes who really stand out.

It’s these skiers, and the production companies that film them, that IF3 spotlights. Generating interest in the event wasn’t tough, says DuRocher. He and his partners were already deeply entrenched in the ski community, so “all the producers automatically jumped on board.”

“All the best [skiers] in the world are supporting what we’re doing,” he says.

The new-school ski movement, he says, “is already pretty legit—it doesn’t really need a festival to [legitimize] it—but we’re just exposing to the masses what skiing is all about, basically.”

This year, IF3 boasts over a dozen videos from around the world, screening in Old Montreal, outdoors at the corner of Notre-Dame W. and St-Jean, and at the Imperial Theatre. Some, like Level 1 Productions’ Refresh and MSP Films’ In Deep: The Skiing Experience, are rapid-fire montages of the latest tricks. Others, like The Edge of Never, about pro Kye Petersen’s attempt at skiing the run on which his father died, feature narrative conventions.

Fans can also expect to rub elbows with big-name skiers like Simon Dumont, Sammy Carlson and JP Auclair at premieres and parties, including a bash marking the 10th anniversary of Newschoolers.com (tonight, Sept. 17, Club LaMouche, 1284 St-Denis), an online hub for ski culture. And the skiers will honour their own at the Newschoolers Awards (Saturday, Sept. 19, 9:30 p.m., Telus Theatre, 1280 St-Denis).

DuRocher thinks those who attend the festival will be fiending for snow by the end of the weekend—especially the grown-up crowd, he says. “They feel young again. They’re really excited about the new season. They want to get on their skis.”

For the full IF3 schedule and more information, visit if3.ca.