EVERY ISLAND HAS A NAME

Perched above a steep couloir in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Sevi takes a deep breath and digs his heel edge in. The snow isn’t perfect, and he knows it.  Solar aspects are streaked with pinwheels, a tell-tale sign of warming conditions, and a gentle nudge to Sevi and his filmer, Willem Jones, that there are only so many days left in the season. In the world of snowboard filmmaking, ‘tis the season when the pressure starts to mount.

He tosses an ‘O’ overhead with his arms, signaling he’s ready to drop, and the whirring of a 16mm camera begins. He tips into his line, arching a turn before airing off a cliff that, from below, looked like just a small drop. But the sheer size of the Swiss Alps has a way of playing with scale. Once Sevi’s frame gives it reference it’s clearly larger than it looked from below, and his landing pad was angled just east enough to have hardened from the previous day’s sun and an overnight refreeze. Perhaps it’s late-season legs, or just the unexpectedness of it all, but the impact buckles his legs, sending Sevi and his patented rainbow hat sliding downslope, eventually stopping.

His arms wave again. All clear.

There was a time in Sevi’s career when this process felt different, more detached. Drop in, land your trick, make sure your body position was just right, and move on to the next one.  His summer job working for the Swiss government paid the bills, and the riders he grew up idolizing had plucked him from the parks of Laax and placed him in the crosshairs of legendary snowboard filmmakers Justin Hosyntk and David Vladkya, better known as Absinthe Films.

In those early days, the weight of his career (and a lifelong dream) was on his shoulders. But in his recounting, it was a time when Sevi also felt unburdened, a vessel for learning the ins-and-outs of the snowboarder’s holy grail: Putting together the perfect video part. Nowadays, some things have changed, and some haven’t. Sevi is as invested as ever in putting together just the right mix of movements to showcase his love for the mountains. But he wants to do it his way.

As Sevi picked up his gear and rode down to his point of safety, he eyed his line, recounting what went wrong. At this point in the season, ‘Every Island Has a Name’ was just a shared ethos, a loosely agreed upon vision for a season-long film project from the minds of Sevi and his teammates, Elena Hight, and Jared Elston, alongside their chosen creative partners, Willem Jones and Achille Mauri. This was a crew that grew up in the snowboard industry and every step of the way they felt both the inspiration of their fellow riders, and the weight of the opportunity to make something memorable.

“In my day, the snowboarders that filmed video parts were like kings—they were the ones that everyone strived to be,” remembers Elena.

After a multi-decade career competing in the icy confines of the halfpipe, the chance to put Elena’s best foot forward on the other end of the snowboard spectrum in the film world didn’t come until she was a last-minute invite on a trip to Alaska. It was a brief intermission from her competitive career. A few years later, she was invited on a shoot with Jeremy Jones as he filmed a self-propelled project in the Sierras. She had toyed with the idea of leaving competitive snowboarding, but after that trip, the decision was clear.

“That shifted my entire trajectory.  I wanted to retire from competing and just pursue riding in the mountains 100% of the time,” Elena remembers.
When Sevi reached out to her for ‘Every Island Has a Name’, the opportunity to join the project was a no-brainer.

“Hearing him talk about his passion, the vibe he wanted to create, and how he wanted to relate snowboarding to art, I felt honoured that he even thought of me.”

“He emulates a style in snowboarding that’s really unique and no one else is doing right now,” says Elena.

For Sevi, the feeling was mutual.

“I got to know Elena at the Arc’teryx Academies, and I have always loved her interpretation of the mountains. We have such different styles, but everything 
has a place.”

Bold and calculated, Elena’s riding in the backcountry is inspired by her lifelong love for snowboarding and a natural intuition in the mountains. But it’s the unmatched board control, visualization skills, and calm earned from a multi-decade career dancing with 18-foot superpipe’s that sets her apart. This unique blend of skills has placed her here: respected for her style and trusted for her tenacity in the most technical terrain.

The last rider of the core crew, Jared Elston, comes from a similar background to Sevi, with a light touch competitive career that quickly blossomed in natural terrain. Growing up at Mount Bachelor in Bend, Oregon, Jared’s bottomless bag of tricks and ability to pull them out in any situation plays loud on screen.

Together, the three riders encapsulate what the super-crews of past snowboard films represented, riders coming from different backgrounds, ways of interpreting the terrain, and styles that both oppose and complement each other in a way that pushes forward snowboarding as a sport, and acts as a visual refresher. Now, it was on them to find a common thread between not just their style, but their 
shared experience.

As the sun started to get higher in the sky, it was clear the high-alpine faces were catching too much sun, and the snow was too variable. But little pockets of snow held moments that were worth capturing, and Sevi and Willem were ready to find them. A small pocket to slash here, a hip to build over there. Listening to the two of them talk through it, you could feel the energy, a potent blend of pure love for the sport, and tension.

‘Sevy is like a fox. Trying to film him is an exercise in always being on your toes. It’s fun, but it’s stressful,” said Willem.

The two have worked together on multiple projects including ‘Chroma,’ an experimental film that broke away from the typical snowboard film mold. After a successful run with Absinthe, the project was a turning point for Sevi.

“Before ‘Chroma’ I didn’t even really watch snowboarding anymore, and I was thinking to myself, why am I doing it? What do I want to show?” remembers Sevi.
As he reflected, he pulled on what he learned from his days filming with Absinthe – the perfect collection of tricks in snowboard films from riders he idolized, the process of working as a team. But something was missing. He wanted to build on that, bringing his own perspective into the process.

“Snowboarding is so much more than just tricks, tricks, tricks,” says Sevi.

As the season marched on, Sevi, Willem, and Achille started to uncover a way to express that sentiment through the shoulder-to-shoulder moments packed into vans and tight accommodations, a time-tested ritual in the snowboarding filmmaking experience. This time, they found their inspiration in the in the form of artists they encountered on their travels. First, a flower artist based in Tokyo. Then, two sculptors – working with hand-built kites and rock, respectively. Slowly, a theme started to reveal itself, and the crew found parallels between the environments they wanted to celebrate and the artist’s work. This opened the door to a new way of seeing and understanding the mountains and why they were drawn to them.

While snowboarding might occasionally be interpreted as no more than adrenaline-fueled entertainment, for those who have gone from blue-hour anticipation to last lap bliss, it’s the personal experience drawn from time spent in the mountains that keeps them coming back, one that cannot be defined under a singular definition.

“When you just show tricks and cut it to a rock-n-roll song, a lot of the snowboarding gets lost. It’s not highlighting how beautiful it is. It’s not revealing how I feel when I’m in the mountains,” says Sevi.

Stay tuned for our next Winter Film Tour online release, ‘Welcome To The Pit’, 
coming soon. Watch the trailer here.