A Story of Mountains and People

written by David Huebner

This film is a humble, relatively quiet and sometimes poetic narrative on the inspiring lives of several backcountry skiers. People who have effected my life in different ways, whether they knew it or not.

Some live at a backcountry ski lodge, lapping powder and cross country skiing all winter, some are residents along the base of the mountains --local characters,who've been cuttin' tele turns since before I was born, and some were just passing through.

After a segment profiling these individuals the film journeys into a documentary on a 35 day ski tour undertaken by three of us. We ski lonely powder, empty corn, and miles of rolling basins.

All of the footage was shot with a professional Canon GL-1 and edited using professional software and effects.

The difference between this ski film and most of the other popular "ski movies", even the new crop of telemark specific films, is that it provides a dialogue, a connection between viewer and skier that is lost to the loud drone of most ski movie soundtracks. This is not a film which does well with the sound off and another CD on the stereo.

You're buying a story, a slice of life from real folks cutting quiet backcountry turns, and you're supporting a lifestyle that is dwindling more and more by the rising living costs in the mountain towns and communities which most of us call home (there are a few, like me, who don't really live in a "community" - rather a wooden cabin deep in the backcountry - or the back of the truck all summer - but count ourselves as part of the "community").

You're buying a 100% labor of love, grassroots, home produced, backcountry free minded free heelin' telemark ski film. No one sponsored any of this film, or else I wouldn't be spending time dubbing copies from the master tape thru my VCR, or burning DVDs on my Apple computer.

Enjoy an honest slice of mountain culture, mountain life, and remember to turn up the volume for the ending ski segment.

Cheers, and happy turns!

FIRST EVER PUBLIC SCREENING, was in MAMMOTH, CA, DEC. 29th,2003, Mammoth Lakes Community Center (it was dumping snow too!)

Future projects:

WINTER IN THE WOODS is half way there!! Yes, a new film from Back of Beyond!....and with the glories of YouTube, you may watch the Short Film part of it here in small, relatively poor quality (it is just under ten minutes long) - it's not yet available for purchase as of course I need to edit together a healthy bonus feature to back it up with on DVD...but it will be available soon for purchase with said bonus feature on DVD soon.....(although "soon" in Back of Beyond reality could mean months....we'll see....)...this film will hopefully be part of a travelling film festival put on by the Winter Wildlife Alliance premiering in Boise, ID on November 16th....

These film projects are slowly coming about, and the full length feature Healthy Minds (and/or A Year in the Life) will hopefully be made sometime in the next few years as I use my brand new little palm sized Sony camera to continue filming this crazy existence and put it into movie form....yes I finally put the dead GL-1 to rest and have finally purchased a new video camera....yes Back of Beyond Films still lives....