The Golden Valley is in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, a lesser seen side of the country now closed off to the world because of its volatile political situation.
Film director Ben Sturgulewski said Bamiyan is legendary in the ski world so, he went to see for himself. He was impressed by the beautiful mountains, awesome powder and the community that had created its own homegrown ski culture.
“They're all about building their own skis out of wood and milk jug bindings and just climbing up into the mountains behind their homes,” he said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour.” "And at the end of the winter, they have an incredible ski race where all the different people from around the valley come together and have a big kind of celebratory ski race where they compete to be the champion of this winter.”
Producer Katie Stjernholm said the film started as a 40-minute short focused on ski culture and competition. After production wrapped, it became a longer story when Afghanistan collapsed into the hands of the Taliban.
She said they put the film on a shelf as they began helping female skiers find ways out of the country.
“And we were successful in getting nearly 300 Afghans out of Afghanistan during that time,” she said. “And then we realized that film we made, which I always kind of refer to as the ‘Cool Runnings’ of Afghan skiing, it required some work to really reconfigure it because we followed the incredible and harrowing, resilient stories of all the skiers as they rebuilt their lives, whether in Afghanistan or whether in a new country, as our main ski coach and others were displaced as refugees.”
“Champions of the Golden Valley” has been on the film festival circuit since June and won several awards. Stjernholm is hopeful for worldwide distribution soon.
“We're at the point where we realize that this is a story that really connects with audiences,” she said. “For distribution, it’s a tough landscape for independent documentary filmmakers. But after our film festival circuit, we are hoping that it will end up on a streaming platform and we're still pushing the film up the mountain to get it released and doing a big impact campaign.”
“Champions of the Golden Valley” will be screened Thursday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Jim Santry Auditorium as part of Park City Film’s Raising Voices series.
A few of the film’s creators will be there for a discussion after the screening.
Tickets are $10 for adults and free for students and can be purchased here.
