Words by Zack Raffin | Photography by Jacob Lee
Los Angeles. While tourists come here for glimpses of red carpets, boardwalks and one particularly large sign adorning the side of a highly visible mountain, residents know a much different way of life.
I am of course, talking about traffic.
It took me 47 minutes to travel 5.9 miles from Venice Beach to the El Rey Theater on Wednesday evening at 5 PM. For reference that would be a 7:54 second mile pace (or 6:13 per kilometer for everyone outside the U.S). With a bit of training, I could have run there faster than my 4Runner chugged along the 10, but alas this was a necessary evil as I was set to attend the latest stop in Arc’teryx’s Winter Film Tour, an event for which I was very happy to not show up drenched in sweat.
While Miami has the tech boom and New York has fashion week, L.A. has become a mecca for the vaguely titled brand activation. What is a brand activation? If you ask one of L.A.’s seemingly endless “creative directors” you’ll get a long winded, adjective laden answer which I’d be thrilled to summize: predominantly hot people with large social media followings standing in a room surrounded by product drinking free booze.
Thank God the Winter Film Tour wasn’t just another brand activation.
Walking into a sea of stylish, smiling people (many adorned in Arc’teryx skullys and jackets) it was clear from the jump that attendees were there merely for their enjoyment, not to fulfill an Instagram story quota. With a slate of 4 films, the evening kicked off with a screening of Every Island Has A Name starring Elena Hight, Jared Elston and W.T. darling Mr. Severin van de Meer. Starting with a robotic female narration, gorgeous virgin snow is carved with acute precision before cutting away to brutalist cement tunnels, drones carrying flowers or kites gliding against a sublime sky. An ethereal experience indeed, and for those with intermediate snow skills such as myself, there is a gorgeously shot wipe out section about halfway through that helps to humanize everything.
And that’s all before mentioning the other 3 films, a cacophony of intricate human stories centered around the mountains. Going East which (as the name suggests) follows Max Kroneck, Silvia Moser, Joi Hoffman, Loic Isliker on a journey east from Italy to Turkey as they hit as many mountains as they can… all via public transport. The Pass, which shines light on the amazing work of Danyelle Magnan and Sylvia Forest as they execute one of the most advanced (and badass) avalanche control programs in the world. And lastly Slides On The Mountain, which followed the journey of two brothers from Canada’s Lil Wat nation on their quest to conquer the mountain with which they grew up: Ts’zil.
It’s hard enough for brands to produce a single winning film, so to experience a night of 4 A+ stories back to back (to back to back) was like a breath of alpine air. Claps, discussion and overwhelming jovial output by the crowd remind you that: while tourists may come for the sea breeze and palm trees, L.A. has a hard core community of resident ski and snow lovers that put in the hard yards for their fix.
So a snowboard premiere? In Los Angeles? No. A snowboard premiere! In Los Angeles! And all we can hope is Arc’teryx finds their way within our urban sprawl again next year.
47 minutes there. 16 minutes home. Gotta love it.
For more information, on the winter film tour and more Arc happenings – we’d strongly advise you to visit events.arcteryx.com/film-tour/en
