Winter’s Children: Naked Ambition

Winter’s Children: Naked Ambition on Nowness.com.

Seven snowboarders go streaking down a backcountry run in professional rider-turned-director Jim Mangan’s exhilarating short film Winter’s Children. “It is an overstatement of why I started snowboarding,” says the filmmaker, who for the last 11 years designed runs at Park City Mountain in Utah where he served as creative head. “It’s also a statement about points in life when you put yourself out in the cold, naked. It’s not necessarily comfortable, but that chill in your bones makes you feel alive.” Mangan can relate: He recently cast off his business suit to pursue art full time—a move that spurred the production of the film we premiere today, which accompanies a book of photographs (published by Powerhouse) and an exhibition in conjunction with VICE at Milk Gallery in Manhattan. “Everybody who was there had a genuine intention going in, a pure love of the sport,” he says. The intrepid group included Mangan’s friend and fellow artist Peter Sutherland, as well as up-and-coming competitors Laura Hadar and Alex Andrews. He admits it took some persuading to get his cast to pair their vintage 1980s Burton snowboards with Native American blankets—and nothing else. “I brought everybody up to my place in Park City and presented the idea. They looked at me like I was crazy. Then Lara Hadar stood up and said, ‘I will totally do this.’” Cue snowball effect.