The Girl Winter Film Tour features a series of six 20-minute films directed by women about women in snow sports — including one from Parkite and former three-time Olympian Megan McJames.
After its Park City debut, the tour will make 30 stops around the country to showcase the series.
Park City Film Executive Director Katy Wang said last year’s tour was wildly successful.
“It's just an amazing collection of stories that bring the community together in such a beautiful way,” she said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Thursday.
McJames’ short film “Trails Still Blazing: Motherhood in the Mountains” will be seen by audiences for the first time on the tour. It’s a follow-up to her first film, “Trailblazer,” which is about her six-year journey to qualify for the Winter Olympics after being cut from the U.S. Ski Team.
McJames has had two daughters since retiring from professional skiing. “Trails Still Blazing” shows how she learned to balance motherhood and her love of skiing.
“I started off motherhood, and I was like, ‘I can't give up this piece of myself that loves to kind of push the limit in the mountains,’ but I felt really guilty about that,” she said.
Through conversations with her husband, McJames realized she was more energized after adventures and could be a better mom when that part of herself was fulfilled.
She’s now passing her love of skiing onto her children.
Parkite Sierra Schlag’s film will be screened on the tour as well. “That One Friend” follows Schlag, a professional backcountry skier, and her free-spirited best friend, Waverly Chin.
According to a description of the film, Schlag sometimes takes her job too seriously, but Chin is always there to remind her that skiing is supposed to be fun.
Wang said the film showcases great skiing and the human side of sport.
“Skiing is their shared passion, and you certainly see that on the screen,” she said. “But also that human side, which I think is the brilliance of a lot of these films and this collection, is that it has that kind of depth of humanity.”
