When it comes to skiing movies, it seems there are two options.
There’s your annual barrage of ski fare that hits the movie houses every fall, and there are your skiing documentaries, the loosely scripted expeditions to exotic lands that originate with a sort of mission statement and then evolve in accordance with the environment.
In late November 2009, Aspen ski mountaineer Chris Davenport herded together a posse of 10 skiers, filmmakers, writers, photographers and sailors and set off from Ushuaia, Argentina, on a journey to ski the Antarctic Peninsula. The resulting footage of one of the world’s last great unexplored-on-skis zones is currently on display in documentary form under the title “Australis: An Antarctic Ski Odyssey.”
The film is named for their boat, and the boat is the closest thing to a chairlift (or heli) that the starring trio of ski mountaineers (Davenport, Stian Hagen and Andrea Binning) uses to reach some of the tallest peaks on the peninsula. This is earn-your-turns alpine touring at the farthest reaches of Earth, and it’s unlike anything else you will see in the theater this winter.
See it: A schedule of limited engagements this month can be found at
