STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — In the last bit of quiet calm before the chaos of winter gallops into town, the Steamboat Mountain Film Festival is ready to lend some stoke to all.

This year’s festival features an eclectic mix of films, including a short film by Steamboat Springs’ own Michael Martin and a crew of Colorado Mountain College students.

‘Return to Send’er‘

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A veteran, a rookie, an innovator and a big mountain star all have different reasons for skiing, but share a common love for the sport. “Return to Send’er” explores each skier’s home turf and personal motivations for their skiing. The film is said to feature some of the most progressive big and small mountain skiing filmed to date and follows the four skiers as they take the heli-ski trip of all heli-ski trips. The film stars Mark Abma, Karl Fostvedt, Sam Kuch and Logan Pehota and is produced by Matchstick Productions and was released in September.

‘White Rhino: The Biggest Year for Big Wave Surfing‘

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In July 2011, Fiji’s coast started seeing waves swell into historic sizes, as big-wave surfers from around the globe flew into the archipelago to get their wave of a lifetime. In the midst of days that could have easily turned out to be the best or worst of these surfers’ lives, photographers capture footage of the “white rhino” of all waves and the surfers who dared to try to ride it. The film stars Bruce Irons, Mark Healey, Nathan Fletcher, Dave Wassel, Kohl Christensen and Kalani Chapman. “White Rhino” was produced by Brent Storm, Brian Bielmann and Randy Olson and directed by Julie Romaniuk. 

“This is something you don’t get to see in Steamboat very much,” Martin said.

‘Frozen Time‘

In January, Martin, the Steamboat Mountain Film Festival organizer and Colorado Mountain College Steamboat Springs’ ski and snowboard business program director, brought 14 students on a study abroad trip to Japan, where they practiced producing and marketing media content, directing and skiing in footage, and explored all over Kiroro and Otaru. 

“It was cool to see what the students can do, in trading off being directors, cameramen and athletes,” Martin said. 

Later, Martin curated and compiled the students’ clips into the short film, “Frozen Time.” 

“There’s this theory that if you can freeze the temperature down to minus-273 Celsius, time will stop,” Martin said. “So the theme behind this film is, what moment would you want to freeze in time?”

‘Kumo Nori’ 

The five-minute film explores Japanese culture, landscape and snow in a look at the country’s tourism through the lens of the ski and snowboard industry. 

Tickets to the Steamboat Mountain Film Festival are available at chieftheater.com and Ski Haus. A number of tickets will also be available at the Chief Theater the evening of the festival; anyone interested in purchasing tickets in person is advised to arrive early.

Julia Ben-Asher is a contributing writer for Steamboat Pilot & Today.

jbenasher@SteamboatPilot.com