The Vancouver based female centered community Shredcatz, founded by Beatrice Franke, has been coming in hot the last few seasons.
What started as wanting more opportunities for women to connect on the mountains quickly escalated into getting in talks with major brands to help change the way the industry supports women from the ground up. One of their partners, Peak Performance, has supported Shredcatz during multiple ride days, in store panel events, and a film project which has just been released online!
Take a look at Carving Space, a film who involved new as well as day-1 Shredcatz members, as well as some of Canada’s leading female photographers & filmers Mady Hart, Zuzy Rocka and Ali Field.
Below you can find a gallery, and a recap by Emma Chamberland.
There are often times when you look back and realize how beautiful things were, even though you weren’t really noticing it in the moment.
It’s been a few years now that Shredcatz has been chugging along, creating space for women in snow sports. And if we’re being honest, once the ball got rolling, it gained momentum fast. It wasn’t a snowball knocking things out of its way, but more like one collecting everything as it tumbled forward.
As we’ve grown, we’ve become a little more formal each year. We’re now a registered non-profit with a board of directors, but at its core Shredcatz is still a passionate group chat that never stops bursting with ideas and someone always ready to run with them. What started with a simple ride day quickly turned into so much more. This season was no different, except that a film project ended up on our goal list, and it quickly became something we were actually going to make. Keep in mind, none of us had ever been part of an actual snowboard film production.
Beatrice Franke, carve spray [o] Zuzy Rocka
Before we knew it, we were piling into cars and heading to the Purcells. Our plan was to dip our toes into freeride terrain and document a whole new space for us all, but we were quickly met with some of the least ideal backcountry conditions the mountains out eastern BC had seen. Regardless, we were there, together, and determined to capture whatever we could.
It’s a familiar story: the crew goes on a trip, conditions are questionable, but somehow the film makes it look like the best week ever. And honestly, looking back… it might have been. But we’re not exactly talking in the sense of camouflaging the challenging riding conditions and making it look like it was pow stashes galore.
Little did we know that this curveball would shape our film into something far more beautiful than anything we had planned. Stepping back, we realized that all year we’d been working on projects with one common thread: at every Shredcatz event, we were meeting incredible women who had shaped their lives around snowboarding and skiing, and their stories kept showing up in the work we were doing.
Many of us in the film crew didn’t grow up with obvious role models. It’s not that none existed, but outside of athletic careers the stories weren’t really being told until recently. It’s been incredible to see that finally changing and even if it’s only over the last few years, the shift is real. And it’s creating a shift in the way we are represented within our community,
What is special about our group is that all our lives share one common theme: no matter what our day jobs are, we have shaped our lives around snow sports in our own unique ways. We wanted the film to reflect that, because there are so many paths that don’t require being a
professional athlete. You can build a life around this passion in ways that look different for everyone.
One of the quotes that stuck the most with us is: our journeys took perseverance — now we’re extending a hand to create opportunities for others. In the end, the film became a reflection of what this space truly is, how it’s evolving, and most importantly a reminder of how much time on snow has shaped us, and continues to shape our lives daily.
Carving Space is a film by Beatrice Franke, Mady Hart, and Ali Field – brought to you by Shredcatz with support from Peak Performance, Panorama Mountain Resort, Vans, Salomon, Arbor, Nitro, Eivy, and Lush Cosmetics. Shredcatz is a grassroots community based in Vancouver, BC, geared at increasing participation and representation of female-identifying and nonbinary gender identities.
Photo below:
L>R Maddie McConomy [o] Ali Field, Emma Chamberland [o] Zuzy Rocka, Bailey Birkkjaer [o] Zuzy Rocka
