More than tricks: How Czech freeskiers built a community on and off the slopes

For the past eight years friends Šimon Bartík and Tomáš Kroczka have been premiering freeski short films to the tight knit Czech free skiing community. Best known now for their podcast Tupý hrany, or dull skis, new fans of the show and long-time followers in the free ski world packed the cultural sports club Radlická in Andel on Thursday evening for their most recent showing.

This year’s premiere featured eight films, lots of timed landings and cringeworthy crashes filmed through fisheye camera lens, fresh powder, and muddy macgyvered trails down staircase railings and across the walls of shipping containers. The short films stars ranged from amateur freeskiiers just starting off, to professionals like Olympic athlete Finn Bilous from New Zealand.

The evening started off with an usually large number of people wearing winter hats inside the heated, exposed brick lined building, beer, foosball, and lots of excited conversations about Šimon Bartík’s urban ski film Slavmatic that was just hours away from being played. As well as hopes of winning a new pair of free skis from the raffle, and talks about the upcoming season.

When the films began, people squeezed to sit in any open space on the floor between the wooden folding chairs that had filled up even before the screenings started. Member of the Czech National Freeski Team Vojta Břeský opened the event by doing a backflip on stage in his oversized blue suit and tie and flat brimmed hat.

As the films played cheers rang from the crowd as people landed flips to perfectly timed Czech rap, rock, and techno music.

After the screenings and raffle I slipped out the side of the building to the muddy backside of the teal sports club to talk with Šimon and Tomáš about the premiere and their love for freeskiing.

Sierra Krueger-Wolfe: The event has been going on for even longer than the podcast. You guys said eight years now, how much has it evolved since year one?

Tomáš Kroczka: “I think that there is no difference. The vibe is still the same. Still, we are premiering our movies. There is the same crowd, maybe even bigger, but not that different. Still the same vibe I think, and that's the key, to keep it like that.”

Šimon Bartík: “Yeah, maybe one thing that changed is that the first year we only premiered Czech movies, and right now we're connecting the international and Czech ski scene in a way. So I think we are trying to get the culture together here, get the scene here, to show them the Czech movies, but also show them the best free skiing that is possible to see in the world, basically.”

Sierra Krueger-Wolfe: How do you guys meet all these different skiers and filmmakers? You guys have people from all over the world now. How do you all get in contact?

Tomáš Kroczka: “It’s mainly Šimon’s work because he works for the European free ski magazine called Downdays EU, so that's the main reason. And he was a pretty good competition skier, so he was doing World Cups and so on, and people know each other.”

Šimon Bartík: “Like for example, the skier that we had here, Finn Bilous. Even though he's a free rider right now, we used to do World Cups together. He used to be one of the best in the freestyle scene and transferred into freeride, which is also cool. We try to show street skiing, free ride skiing, park skiing. It's like a mixture for everyone. So everyone is welcome, and everyone is stoked to see their favorite part of skiing here. I guess that's why people come here.”

Tomáš Kroczka: “We are trying to show all the ways of freeskiing you can do. So that everybody can find what they like.”

Sierra Krueger-Wolfe: How did you guys first get into the freestyle ski scene?

Šimon Bartík: “Randomly, I would say randomly. I grew up skiing with my parents, but didn't go to any ski club or nothing. I just didn't like just skiing on the slope, and I was always trying to find jumps next to the slope, and then I started trying to go backwards switch, as we say. But I didn't have freestyle skis, so I was always falling over, and then my old skis bought me a pair of freestyle skis, and that's how I basically started. And I think like you also started kind of like randomly…”

Tomáš Kroczka: “I think I have it kind of different, because I was trying to do freestyle snowboarding, and once I saw Pepé Kalenský in the snow park in Horní Mísečky, which was like the OG snow park in Krkonoše, and I saw him doing stuff on skis, I was like, "That's what I want to do." And it was 2007, I think, and we already knew each other [Šimon and Tomáš] from football in my hometown. I was still asking my mom to  buy me a pair of freestyle skis, and she said, "You cannot ski, so it's not gonna work.” But I was annoying enough to make it real. So then I got my first pair, and I was learning skiing and freestyle skiing at same time.”

Šimon Bartík: "But we both didn't go to a ski club at first. You start free skiing like this basically; you like to see that someone is doing something cool in the snow park, or something out of the bounds of slopes, and then you kind of actually go for it. But it's not like your parents get you into a ski club, and then you start freestyle skiing. I think that's why everyone likes it so much here, that it's this passion that could be a sport that you go to Olympics with and do World Cups, but at the same time, you can ski on the smallest box, slide a rail, do a little mute grab, do a little jump in the snow park, and you don't need to go to a ski club. So that's why I think it's appealing.”

Tomáš Kroczka: “Yeah, and still, you are part of the community, if you’re a competition skier or skier doing that small stuff. We are like one family, and I think this is the biggest difference from the snowboarding scene and freestyle scenes, that we are like a huge family, and I have no idea how to explain it. I don't know why, but it's like that, and I really like it.”

Sierra Krueger-Wolfe: Do you mean like the Czech freestyle scene?

Šimon Bartík: “We know the Czech freestyle scene the best, so I don't know, but probably it's global. Like whenever I meet someone from all around the world, the community works the same way, I would say. But maybe what we did with this event is that we tried to show even the skiers who are nothing close to being a pro, or you know they just go out and they have fun with it. Like the projects we saw from ORE or from Honza Ferbr, it's skiers who just have fun and it doesn't matter if you do a triple cork or if you do a slide off the box, it's the same, and everyone had the same kind of [reaction] from the crowd. Maybe even bigger for the small guys who weren't doing that many tricks. It's still so cool to see them on the big screen, I would say, and everyone supports it. So I don't know, I also don't know how to explain it, as Tomáš said, but I think it’s a really, really great thing about our sport.”

Tomáš Kroczka: “I think it's just like that, and we really appreciate it.”

Sierra Krueger-Wolfe: What inspired you guys to first start doing the film premieres?

Tomáš Kroczka: “The first year was in 2018, and together with my friends, we created an only urban ski movie, and we wanted to show it on the screen. Šimon did his first project as well, and we were already friends, so we decided to do it together.”

Šimon Bartík: “We didn't know what to expect at all.”

Tomáš Kroczka: “We just dropped the event on Facebook. It was back in the old days, so Facebook was working different, and in a few days there were almost 1000 people coming, and it was totally full. It was at Altenburg on the boat.”

Šimon Bartík: “And people saw just half of the screen. Because there's no stage, and we didn't think it through. But it was so cool at the same time. No one complained about it. That's the thing as well,  I think somewhere else, in some other sports or discipline, people would complain. They only made fun of us for seeing half of the screen, but they still loved it, and next year they came again. And we had another venue where you could actually see the whole screen. So, that was cool.”

Sierra Krueger-Wolfe: That’s crazy that so many free skiers showed up that you guys didn't even know prior.

Tomáš Kroczka: “I think that the main reason is that we are doing the podcast, and we have been doing it for almost six years, so maybe that's the reason why so many people are coming every year.”

Šimon Bartík: “Even new people. The first years, we knew everyone basically, like everyone who came to the premiere, and there were people coming from all parts of the Czech Republic, even Slovakia, and we knew so many people. But right now, I don't know that many people, but that's the cool thing about it. You see the community grow a bit. You know there are some new faces, so I think that's actually cool about it, and as Tomáš said, it might be from the podcast, might be from I don't know, a friend telling a friend that he's gonna be on the big screen actually skiing rails at Kitzsteinhorn. So I think it's kind of like a snowball that keeps going.”

Tomáš Kroczka: "And I think that the reason could be that the event is totally free, that you can come and buy a ticket for the raffle, and that's the only way we finance it. But if you want to come, just see the film, see the movie, have one beer, and then go home…”

Šimon Bartík: “…nobody cares. You're welcome to come and not pay for entry.”

Despite the free premiere many people still entered the raffle sponsored by SnowPanic to win gear and even freestyle skis, Radlická was completely packed from Šimon and Tomáš on the front stage all the way to the bar at the back near the entrance, everyone waiting excitedly to hear if their number would be called to win something. And to finish off the night one of the films stars, DJ Jan, mixed inside until late in the night, surrounded by dancing freeskiers still wearing their winter hats.