The Coldsmoke Film Tour Hits Whistler – Ski Films and Swag For All!

You know the drill.

It starts with your buddy posting an enticing ski film segment to Facebook. You click it, you watch it, you like it.

When the video is done, you notice a rather interesting-looking snowboard clip promoted so thoughtfully on the right hand side of the screen. Click. Then you see another. And another, and another, and another. Pretty soon, you’re hearing the story of a ninja/ice climber, after having watched two guys surf in the crazy winter waters of Norway. It’s the magical vortex of YouTube.

The Coldsmoke Winter Film Tour, which hit Whistler for the first time in its 10-year history last night, is a lot like the vortex. Celebrating all things winter mountain culture, the two hour show featured highlights from the video submissions received for the Coldsmoke Awards.

And what a show it was! For those with a shorter attention span like myself, it was an absolute dream. We watched the best segments from full-feature films, like the stellar all-lady production Shades of Winter and the “The Art of the Turn” segment featuring DCP in our beloved Sherpas’ Into the Mind. We watched some incredible shorts, including unreleased footage from Switchback Entertainment and even films in other languages. And we even watched non-ski and shred related films, like the aforementioned ice climbing ninja short by Alias Cinema, Every Day.

There were two separate screenings and while the shows were not quite sold out, they were well-attended, considering it was the first year that Whistler has been included in the tour. The boys of Coldsmoke hosted the show, with a few guest appearances from local filmmakers Jamie Tanner and Mike Douglas, who introduced some of their own submissions into the show.

We’re lucky to have events like this in Whistler. Groups like Coldsmoke do all the work for us; we just have to show up, sit back, and be inspired by the incredible people and landscapes on this planet.

Coldsmoke didn’t let the audience go home empty handed—we each received a swag bag with a pretty gangster looking Coldsmoke Co. hat and some other goodies, and we were treated with Coldsmoke Co. t-shirts that were screen printed by hand right before our very eyes. There was also a raffle benefitting our avalanche centre—as it turns out, Coldsmoke raises funds for local causes on each stop of the tour.

All in all, the Coldsmoke Film Tour was a very rad evening. I’m looking forward to its return in 2014—it can only get bigger and better from here.

One last thing—if you were at the show and liked what you saw, head over to their website to vote for the People’s Choice Awards. If you weren’t at the show, settle in and check out the clips on the site—“Progression in Regression” is a must-watch.