The Art of Recreation
A visual manifesto of the minds of Laurent and Sampo as skiers.
After devoting years of their lives to freeskiing, LDM and Sampo felt the need to redefine their vision of what free-skiing means to them.
For most of their careers, both skiers have spent the winter months working towards deadlines for high-end ski productions. Ultimately, it was through abandoning this seasonal pattern & creating their own brand they found a way to change their perspective.
The Film
With Simply., they fashioned new tools to allow their creativity to flourish. This naturally led to a return in front of the lens, but this time, with a different direction in mind.
Best Short Movie
@Freeride Film Festival
Interview
A few words by Laurent De Martin
Over the years, you have released my films and parts – what place does “The Art of Recreation” hold in your heart? Is there anything special about this one? And why?
There is something special about The Art of Recreation, as it’s the first movie that was not planned.
During the foundation of Simply., it was a huge goal and dream for Sampo and me to make a movie with our new skis. However, as winter started, I realized how much work Simply. was going to be. Moreover, the winter started badly with almost no snow. So we decided not to embark on a big movie project then and not make one.
But as the winter progressed, Sampo filmed some things on his own, and we happened to spend some days with different filmmaker friends, like Jules who was trying out his new 16mm camera, or Tyndall traveling through.
Later in the season, I wanted to shoot with Maxime Ramoul, a French photographer based in Finland, and we made it happen. He was supposed to shoot only analogs, but when he was here, we received the roll of 16mm film from Jules, and we seriously considered making a movie. Maxime went crazy with stop motions.
We decided to make a movie during our trip to Mammoth with Sampo. Filming with Josh Berman during the Level 1 week was just amazing – especially riding with the whole crew again! We also had a shoot with 686, where Greg Weaver filmed some footage that we wanted to use.
The real challenge was for Jules Guarneri, who edited the movie. We had a lot of different cameras and random shots. He used all of that as a mosaic to create this little piece. Personally, when watching all the timelines for the first time, I couldn’t even imagine it.
We don’t know the goal of this movie, except to create something different that represents our first ski season with our Simply. Ski tools. It inspired us to go cruise around, have fun, and shoot with cool people. We didn’t have the pressure of a planned project, which I think brought some freshness to this one.
What would you like people to remember about “The Art of Recreation”? Which message do you want to spread and to whom?
Personally, this movie will stay as something special, a creative memory of our first year building a ski brand. We created it the way we wanted it to be and with friends. Thanks to all again. Much love. I don’t think there is any specific message, but maybe that you can always create cool stuff if you have fun & share it with friends.
Small tip?
Please watch it on a big screen and turn the music up to the maximum.
Composing a mosaic of techniques and formats, from 16mm film to modern cinema cameras, passing through stop motion en route, it offers a vivid display of what the mountains and friendship can offer.
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