Each Fall, Missoulians experience an annual set of events that serve as heralds of the coming Winter, signs of colder weather approaching, and gentle reminders that times full of exponentially more skiing are steadily advancing. Skiers look forward to these checkpoints with quivering excitement. First the leaves start falling, then the temperatures drop, and finally, Teton Gravity Research and their annual masterpiece of a ski film comes to Missoula.
This year’s movie, Beyond the Fantasy, proved once again why TGR remains at the forefront of the ski movie industry. With its world class cast, giddy and hilarious tone, steep lines, huge sends, and underlying message that dreams can be turned into reality, Beyond the Fantasy most definitely got Missoulians excited for ski season.
Just like the past several years, the Wilma hosted the event. Over the course of an hour, the venue slowly filled with the skiers and snowboarders of Missoula, and the noise level of anticipatory excitement increased accordingly. Whitefish, Montana’s own Maggie Voisin, who has one of the highest amounts of screen time of any skier in the film, signed posters and talked with fans, and the Missoula Ski Education Foundation sold merch to raise money. Once everyone took their seats a well known Gull Ski employee hosted a raffle in which an excited grown man walked away with a pair of small womens snow pants. And then the lights dimmed, and the main event of night began.
The film opened with a hilarious skit featuring two old-time cowboys running around Jackson Hole, Wyoming on a quest to capture snowboarders. Both snowboarder and cowboy ran through iconic scenes in the famous ski town, such as the Mountain Village and the Jackson town square. Throughout the rest of the film, almost every segment began with a skit like this; they had everything from ski legend Brad Holmes teaching the audience how to make a ski movie to Krampus chasing Colter Hinchliffe through the streets of an Austrian village. This gave the movie a more playful and silly feel that we haven’t experienced from TGR’s past movies.
Beyond the Fantasy took us all over the Northern hemisphere, from TGR’s backyard (Jackson Hole) to Alaska, then to Norway and Austria and then back to British Columbia. In a season with less than optimal snow, the cast certainly was able to find it. Before the film, Voison shared with the Missoula audience that many of the segments were filmed in only one to two days in a powder-chasing format. “We wanted to get it done when we had really good snow,” said Voisin.
One of the highlights of the film had to be the Alaska “spine cell” segment, featuring TGR poster child (who’s barely a child anymore) Kai Jones. Jones somehow walks the line between ushering in a new generation of young skiers and being a legend to the sport, and coming off an almost career ending injury last season, it was inspiring to see him back on snow slashing some of the steepest spine lines Alaska has to offer. He addressed that the cast had been dreaming about the spine cell lines for a while, and it was amazing to see it come to fruition. Jones was also featured throughout the film in other segments, like the Jackson Hole backcountry edit featuring the unofficial TGR core-team of Jones, Parkin Costain, Maggie Voisin, and Tim Durtschi.
Other skiers (and a few snowboarders) had stand-out segments. Voisin, along with Janelle Yip, had a powerful segment in Haines, Alaska where they addressed the inspiration that comes with skiing with other female skiers. The electric Sammy Carlson edit ended the film, giving us a fast paced and action packed dose of Carlson’s style to cap off the movie.
Beyond the Fantasy gave us just the kick of skiing hype we needed to make it to when the snow starts falling. Ski movies are an integral part of ringing in ski season, and TGR’s are always the very best.
