{"id":23023,"date":"2017-12-18T08:20:05","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T16:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=23023"},"modified":"2025-11-20T18:39:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T02:39:42","slug":"two-skiers-set-out-to-make-a-film-about-life-and-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/two-skiers-set-out-to-make-a-film-about-life-and-loss","title":{"rendered":"Two Skiers Set Out to Make a Film About Life and Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro skiers Eva Walkner and Jackie Paaso discuss their upcoming film project, \u201cEvolution of Dreams.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you are an athlete, your entire identity can feel tied to your sport. Which means when you lose that sport\u2014due to injury or some other circumstance\u2014it can feel like losing a piece of yourself. At least, that\u2019s how professional skiers Jackie Paaso and Eva Walkner felt at one point in their lives.<\/p>\n

Their new film, \u201cEvolution of Dreams,\u201d documents the interlinking stories of Jackie and Eva\u2014the losses they suffered, the joys they rediscovered and the ways a sport can shape you. A seven-minute trailer for the film, shown above, just debuted online, with a full-length feature film set to premiere in the fall of 2018.<\/p>\n

Through archival footage from their youth, the movie looks back at where these women came from. Jackie, a mogul skier from Massachusetts, won the overall combined title at the Junior World Championships for mogul skiing at age 18. Eva, a ski racer from a small village in Austria, competed in her first World Cup race at 18. They were both incredibly talented but also plagued by injuries. \u201cI had seasons where I couldn\u2019t ski without taking painkillers every day,\u201d Eva says.<\/p>\n

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Eva Walkner and Jackie Paaso bootpack up a line in their new movie, “Evolution of Dreams.” (Photo Credit: Christoph Oberschneider)<\/p><\/div>\n

After Jackie failed to make the U.S. Ski Team for moguls at age 21 and the financial burden of the sport weighed too heavily on her family, she quit skiing and began dealing with depression. \u201cI was a mogul skier since I was 9 and then all of a sudden, I was not. I felt very lost,\u201d Jackie says. Due to multiple knee injuries, Eva retired from racing at age 22 and swore she\u2019d never ski again. \u201cTwenty years of training, fighting and support from my parents and friends, and then I just had to stop,\u201d Eva says. \u201cI fled the mountains entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n

But eventually, both women found their way back to snow-covered peaks. Friends from the East Coast invited Jackie to sleep on their spare futon out in Tahoe, so she moved west and worked an assortment of jobs, like waitressing and landscaping. She later entered her first freeskiing contest at the encouragement of friends. \u201cFreeride definitely renewed my love of skiing,\u201d Jackie says. \u201cIt also gave me new challenges that I now recognize I needed in my life to feel satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n

“We wanted to make a movie about skiers who just happened to be women.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eva, meanwhile, moved to the capital city of Vienna but after three years of avoiding skiing, she found herself longing for the mountains again. So she signed up to work as a ski instructor at a resort in the Austrian Alps. There, she skied her first backcountry line piled with fresh snow. \u201cSuddenly, skiing became fun again,\u201d Eva remembers.<\/p>\n

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Eva Walkner grew up ski racing in Austria before turning to freeride skiing. (Photo Credit: Christoph Oberschneider)<\/p><\/div>\n

The two women met in 2010 on the Freeride World Tour, an elite big-mountain ski competition that travels all over Europe and beyond, sending athletes hurtling down steep, rock-strewn faces in front of live television audiences and a panel of judges. At their first event, in Chamonix, France, Jackie\u2019s boot buckle inexplicably fell off as she dropped into the venue and she ended up in the back of the pack; Eva took second place. But as tour rookies, they bonded quickly and became fast and loyal friends.<\/p>\n

The pair eventually began talking about working on a film project together. \u201cWe wanted to make a movie about skiers who just happened to be women,\u201d Jackie says. Eva says they are on the same page about what a good movie should look like. \u201cOur goal is to make a movie with strong skiing and a good story,\u201d Eva says. The footage was shot over the course of last winter in mountain locales mainly around France and Austria.<\/p>\n

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Jackie Paaso was a mogul skier from the East Coast who’s been competing on the Freeride World Tour since 2010. (Photo Credit: Christoph Oberschneider)<\/p><\/div>\n

The film\u2019s main message, subtly tucked in between gratuitous powder shots and steep lines shot from a drone, is that dreams and goals can change over time, and it\u2019s how you cope with those changes that matters most. \u201cWhile it\ufffd\ufffd\ufffds important to chase your dreams, it\u2019s also OK if things end up differently than you\u2019d originally hoped,\u201d Jackie says. \u201cDon\u2019t let your failures define you; instead, let them make you stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even non-skiers will enjoy the film. \u201cIt\u2019s a movie about life. It doesn\u2019t matter who you are, we all have our dreams, wishes and issues,\u201d Eva says. \u201cBut in the end, it\u2019s still a ski movie.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pro skiers Eva Walkner and Jackie Paaso discuss their upcoming film project, \u201cEvolution of Dreams.\u201d When you are an athlete, your entire identity can feel tied to your sport. Which means when you lose that sport\u2014due to injury or some other circumstance\u2014it can feel like losing a piece of yourself. At least, that\u2019s how professional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":23024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[288,726,59,364,651],"internal-tag":[1683],"class_list":["post-23023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snowsports","tag-featured","tag-force-of-nature","tag-ski","tag-snowsports","tag-women","post_format-video","internal-tag-pre-redirect-snowsports"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/two-skiers-set-out-to-make-a-film-about-life-and-loss","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Two Skiers Set Out to Make a Film About Life and Loss","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/two-skiers-set-out-to-make-a-film-about-life-and-loss","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/two-skiers-set-out-to-make-a-film-about-life-and-loss"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/12\/EvolutionofDreams_FeaturedImage.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/12\/EvolutionofDreams_FeaturedImage.jpg?fit=1500%2C960"},"articleSection":"Snowsports","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Flandreau"}],"creator":["Michelle Flandreau"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["featured","force of nature","ski","snowsports","women"],"dateCreated":"2017-12-18T16:20:05Z","datePublished":"2017-12-18T16:20:05Z","dateModified":"2025-11-21T02:39:42Z"},"rendered":"