‘I Realised the Way to Live Life” – A Time for Everything and the Adventures of Chris Booth. Video

Mountainwatch | Video

Nikolai Schirmer is a Norwegian freeskier and filmmaker whose films are renowned for their story telling, characters and self-deprecating humour, garnering his popular You Tube channel over 100,000 subscribers.

He is also quite prolific and over the past six weeks, in the lead-up to the European winter Nikolai has released six films. A Time For Everything  is the most recent and it is something different – a ski biopic whose subject is a good friend of Nikolai, Australian skier Chris Booth.

The film is shot in northern Norway where Nikolai grew up, the pair touring into the Lyngen Alps to ski the challenging north face of a mountain called Store Jaegervasstinden. Using interviews and older clips the film also tells Chris’ story along the way.

It is the story of a child prodigy whose progression set the standard for Australian freeskiing in the early 2000s, a pro skier who was actually paid a wage during his high school years. Chris is also a writer, was a contributor to Australian snow media, including his thoughtful Boothy’s Blogs for Mountainwatch.

As we wrote in the intro to his Chillfactor Podcast interview, Chris always understood the fragility of being a “pro skier” in Australia and was equally committed to his education, graduating university with a law degree.

However, it wasn’t long before Chris discovered a suit and tie and daily life in a Sydney skyscraper wasn’t for him. The adventure and freedom of skiing lured him back to the mountains and the ski industry, Chris realising that,

“The way to live your life is actually is to do the things you want to do, not the things that you feel like you ought to do.”

 

Norway’s far north and the Lyngen Alps are a beautiful part of the world and are complemented perfectly by the skiing, filming and editing in this film. The added depth of the story make A Time For Everything one of the best of this year’s film releases.