Inside 'Girl Winter', Skiing’s Women-Led Film Tour

The tour’s name references the viral “girl dinner” trend, which describes the array of snacks some people favor when eating alone. Instead of plating olives alongside pita chips, though, Girl Winter is showing six bite-sized ski movies, ranging from three to 25 minutes. 

For the most part, these films aren’t pure skiing action flicks; instead, they lean towards narrative. One tells the story of Julie McGuire, an English teacher who embarked on a multi-season journey to climb and ski 33 of the highest peaks in the Catskill Mountains, alone. Another, featuring Olympian and alpine racer Megan McJames, addresses the duality of being a skier and a mom.

“I always wanted to create films that were more than just, you know, your classic ski porn,” said La Motte, who directed the movie featuring McJames. “I wanted to create something that was deeper, something that had more of a connection point.”

Alongside La Motte and Schlag, Moonrise, the creative studio behind Girl Winter, also includes Sara Beam Robbins and Katie Cooney. Ahead of the 2022-23 season, the four worked together on Advice for Girls, a feature-length ski film with an all-female cast and crew, which aimed, in part, to counter the gender imbalance in snowsports media. Almost all of the Advice for Girls tour stops sold out, La Motte said.

Afterward, the team embarked on smaller video projects, and they wanted venues to show them beyond YouTube releases, spawning an idea: Why not tour their new ski movies together? The team sourced a few additional films and, in about a month, organized Girl Winter’s first outing in fall 2024 with Advice for Girls as a blueprint.

For 2025, the Girl Winter film tour has doubled in size, with stops in Park City, San Francisco, Seattle, and more. Fans can pick up a new line of merch at the events and, as La Motte noted, “We have biodegradable glitter, which we're pretty excited about.” At select shows, the films will have an intermission with music from live bands. The outerwear brand Stio and Ski Utah have signed on as sponsors.

“This time around, we saw the success and that people were still hungry for these stories. So we started planning much further in advance,” said Schlag.

Moonrise is looking beyond the fall and coming ski season, too. In 2026, the creative studio plans to release Winter Elements, a two-year project that’ll be teased at the upcoming Girl Winter events. It features athletes, but Winter Elements is also about the women who work behind the scenes in the ski industry, like ski patrollers, avalanche forecasters, and snowcat drivers.

La Motte thinks that many women-centric films have involved asking, “Can we please participate?” Winter Elements, with its depictions of the women embedded at every level of skiing, has a different message.

“This one is very much like, ‘We're here, we're already at the table,’” La Motte said. “[It’s] basically showing women in their roles, no longer asking for permission, and instead showing up, ready to take on the job.”

To grab tickets and learn more about Girl Winter, click here.