Sierra Schlag has skied steep, technical lines in Norway, led tours in the mountains of Japan, crushed moguls as a young competitor in Park City and cruised down the wind-blown snow of Mt. Sopris in the Roaring Fork Valley.
The professional freeride skier based in Carbondale has been sliding downhill since she was a toddler, and now represents brands like Atomic Skis and OnX Backcountry. But for most of her life, she hasn’t seen herself reflected in ski media, which “still very much caters toward white men,” she said.
“I'm Japanese-American, and I can attest that I've never seen anyone that really looks like me in ski media,” Schlag said in an interview.
Enter “Advice for Girls,” an all-female ski documentary that celebrates skiers with diverse backgrounds and fresh perspectives on the sport. It screens at The Arts Campus at Willits on Friday night and Saturday afternoon; the matinee was added due to popular demand.
“When we were making this film, we wanted … everyone to find themselves and see themselves in at least one of these stories,” Schlag said.
Schlag stars in the movie and helped produce it with an all-female crew behind the camera, too. Addy Jacobsend was the “the brains behind the operation” as a producer on the film, Schlag said. They worked with director Sara Beam Robbins and several other women on the filming and photography in locations like Crested Butte, Alta and Jackson Hole.
“‘Advice for Girls’ is not just uplifting one type of girl or woman, it's uplifting all of us, so we can all get better and be more empowered,” Schlag said.
So the movie features women of color, transgender women, and women with disabilities — not as “token” representatives but as core members of the skiing community with individual stories worth celebrating. There are also major pros in the film, like freeskiing champion AJ Cargill and Olympic silver medalist Devin Logan, as well as mountain guides, outdoor influencers and even some back-flipping 12-year-olds.
“The feedback of people being like, ‘I finally see myself in ski media,’ is just really rewarding,” Schlag said.
That hasn’t always been the case in ski movies and other industry media, though. Schlag said the social and political movements of 2020 spurred outdoor brands into action on diversity, equity and inclusion, but those “grassroots” efforts can sometimes fall by the wayside when the industry feels a financial pinch.
“I think (the ski industry is) evolving at a slow pace, … and I think it's going to take a lot of work to make that actual change happen,” Schlag said.
“Advice for Girls” comes almost a decade after another pioneering all-female ski movie, “Pretty Faces,” and nearly 25 years after one of the very first to focus on women, “No Man’s Land.” But there’s a clear appetite for more.
Last year, the documentary “Nexus” focused on five different groups of women in the mountains. This winter, there are two women-led ski comedies on the docket: “Here, Hold My Kid” features professional skiers (and moms) Elyse Saugstad and Jackie Paaso, while “Weak Layers” upends the “ski bro” tropes under the direction of Katie Burrell.
And “Advice for Girls” generated more than $47,000 in funding from a Kickstarter campaign, backed by more than 400 supporters.
“Creating that space, creating that representation is going to open the doors for more women and girls to be like, ‘Oh, I can totally make a movie, I can totally show my personality and my skiing,” Schlag said.
Plus, they can do it while enjoying the sport in a supportive community, without the pressure to be “skiing crazy lines in Alaska every year” in order to succeed, she said.
“My advice in the film is to show up as you, because there's enough space for all of us,” Schlag said. “And something I've learned through the process of making this film is that … you don't need to be ripping the biggest lines or giant tricks. You can just go (have) fun with your friends. And that's totally enough.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct spelling typos in two names.
