Featured Imagery: Courtesy of Legs of Steel | Skier: Denis Ranalter
On Movie Monday, FREESKIER brings you free movies from the wide world of skiing. With a mix of old and new, this is where you can find your weekly dose of freeski history, adrenaline and cinema mastery all in one.
Part of what makes a successful film is the ability of the project to extend beyond a niche. No matter what the subject is, it has to be able to reach people through underlying themes. In skiing, this comes in many forms. Often we see ski films reach a mainstream audience by finding emotional connections through incredible storytelling and camera work. The excitement, fear, awe and nostalgia conveyed through skiing can be magnetizing, even if you’ve never touched a pair of skis in your life. From Sherpas Cinema’s widely popular surrealist film, “All. I. Can.” to Candide Thovex’s three-part short series, “One of those Days,” there are many ways to reach an audience.
When a ski film becomes more than a ski film, and when the stories we tell center around skiing’s role in the larger world, that’s when the real magic happens. “Descendance” is an excellent example of exactly this. Praised by viewers and critics, the movie received the 2024 Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Camera Work in a Long Form Film Project.
Centered around Austrian freeskier Dennis Ranalter, this project focuses on a quest for identity. For a black man raised in a predominantly white culture, this does not come easy. He is a quiet, easy-going individual who is one of the greatest at his craft in the world, but the questions of self, race and family take Ranalter far from the mountains he knows. As one of our favorite film’s of the year, we’re proud to feature it on FREESKIER’s Movie Monday.
Watch “DESCENDANCE” for FREE Below
