The UK Snow Film Festival launches on the 26th and 27th November at Komedia, Brighton and we want to show the best in UK talent alongside the best in the industry. Whether it be top quality riding, creative action sequences, serious comedy, or a mixture of all three there could be a place for your movie in our amateur short film contest. If don’t find yourself in the festival , your film will appear at the best of the rest showing at the afterparty.

The only theme for the films is ‘snow’, the films should be no longer than 4 minutes. The competition offers some great prizes from two different categories; Best Short film and Best Athlete Performance. Both will be judged by an independent panel of industry experts. This is also your chance to show off what you can do in front of many big name brands that are always on the lookout for new talent.

You can submit your film for the festival at: http://www.snowfilmfest.co.uk/?page_id=1200
If you have any problems submitting your film or would rather submit it in another format please contact us: contact@snowfilmfest.co.uk, make sure all submissions are in no later than the 20th November 2009.
Get your tickets for the rest of the action including the latest offering from Poor Boyz Productions and Standard Films at: www.snowfilmfest.co.uk

It was 5 years ago that Dark Summer was first born into this world. Five years ago since the idea of a freeski magazine that focussed on, nurtured and rewarded the talent in the UK was dragged kicking and screaming from the idle minds of two ski bums and made a reality. Despite a few bumps in the road last year, the kind words of our supporters kept us going and made us adamant that we would bring it back.

So, it is with triumphant joy that we proudly announce our 2009/10 relaunch. As you read this press release, our team of painfully eager enthusiasts are putting pen to paper to create the 3 issues that will grace the shelves this season.

The first issue of this season (our relaunch issue) will arrive as usual, at the Metro Ski and Snowboard Show in October and will feature our usual, unique style of content. The second issue will hit in December and the third at the end of January.

Our mission today remains the same as when we started 5 years ago. We aim to provide passionate, challenging, informative content and we are committed to promoting the freeskiing lifestyle and working with like-minded companies to nurture the UK freeski market.

As always, we are eager to hear from all the freeskiers out there. Dark Summer was started for you and we want you all to be involved in shaping it. Let us know what you want to see and we’ll make it happen.

To keep up to date on what we’re doing, you can swing by our website at www.darksummer.co.uk or follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/dark_summer.

 Many of the top international names in elite freeskiing are now confirmed for the inaugural 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games which take place on 21-30 August 2009. These include possibly the world’s best-known freeskier, Jon Olsson from Sweden, who is the star attraction at the closing event of the Games, the Queenstown Resort College Big Air on 30 August at Coronet Peak.Olsson (27) is renowned for his invention of seemingly impossible double flips – two separate flips during one air - the most famous one being a double flatspin 900 which won him gold in the Big Air at the 2008 Winter X Games.

Heading the Kiwi charge is former World Superpipe Champion and X Games slopestyle silver medallist Jossi Wells (17) of Wanaka who will compete in all three disciplines of slopestyle, halfpipe and big air.

From across the Tasman are two strong Australian contenders for the men’s and women’s slopestyle title. Russ Henshaw took out the European Open championship title in 2008 while Anna Seagal is an X Games gold medallist and former US Open champion. Olsson’s fellow countrymen, Henrik Harlaut and Jacob Wester will also add considerable interest to the slopestyle event as current European champion and X Games bronze medallist respectively, as will Tom Wallisch (USA) fresh from his 2009 Dew Tour slopestyle victory.

France is also well represented with current world halfpipe number one and World Halfpipe Champion, Kevin Rolland together with Xavier Bertoni, X Games gold medallist and current world number two. They are joined by Anais Caradeux who is currently ranked number two on the women’s tour. All three will compete in the halfpipe event with Bertoni and Rolland also taking on the testing slopestyle course at The Remarkables.

Despite being only 17, Megan Gunning is Canada’s top female halfpipe rider and is ranked number three in the world with an impressive number of World Cup podiums already under her belt. She will also compete in both the slopestyle and big air. Also from North America, Matt Philippi (USA), winner of the 2009 European Open Halfpipe championships will have his eye on gold but will first have to contend with the strongest freeski field ever seen in New Zealand.

The freeski slopestyle competition kicks off the mountain events at 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games at The Remarkables on Saturday 22 August from 9.00am. The freeski halfpipe will take place at Cardrona Alpine Resort on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 August. The Queenstown Resort College Big Air will start from 12 noon on Sunday 30 August at Coronet Peak. All three events are part of the AFP World Tour which means results from the Games will be considered when selections are made for the 2010 Winter X Games.

The inaugural 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games will take place at Coronet Peak, The Remarkables, Cardrona Alpine Resort, Snow Farm, Naseby and Dunedin from 21-30 August 2009. It will feature disciplines of alpine skiing, free skiing, x-country skiing, snowboarding, curling, ice skating and adaptive snow sports as well as the demonstration sports of winter triathlon and natural luge. For further information visit www.wintergamesnz.com.

Tignes, France - ESPN, CANAL + Events and Tignes Ski & Snowboard Resort announced today that together they will launch the first Winter X Games Europe March 10-12, 2010. The event will be the first Winter X Games held outside the United States. A definitive list of the world’s top winter action sports athletes will be invited to France to compete for medals and prize money in eight different competitions over three days, including Ski and Snowboard SuperPipe and Slopestyle for men and women as well as a Snowmobile demonstration.

CANAL + Events CEO, Jean Louis Dutaret said, “We are delighted to work with ESPN and the X Games team to bring the Winter X Games to Europe. CANAL + Events and the ESPN events team will draw on all their experience to ensure this is the biggest and best winter sports event in Europe in 2010. As for soccer, rugby and many sports, CANAL + Group will consider X Games as a global project, including TV, Internet and mobile. In a Winter Olympic year, and only a few weeks after athletes have competed in Vancouver, fans in Europe will again be able to watch the top names in the world compete head to head.”

“Nothing could be more justified than Tignes as the host resort of the first Winter X Games Europe. Tignes, the sportiest European ski resort, is always at the forefront of action and freestyle winter sports,” said Tignes Ski & Snowboard Resort Manager, Sebastien Merignargues.

Rick Alessandri, ESPN Senior Vice President and Managing Director, X Games Franchise said, “Working with CANAL + and Tignes, and drawing on more than 10 years experience of running the Winter X Games in the United States, we are excited to bring winter action sports fans in Europe the best action sports event they will see in 2010. This first event outside the U.S. reflects the continued global growth of the X Games franchise as well as the progression of action sports in Europe.”

CANAL + Networks (CANAL +, CANAL + SPORT, Sport +) will show the Winter X Games in France and French-speaking territories (Caribbean, French speaking Africa) live or on delay so that those unable to come to Tignes will be able to see the event. ESPN will be responsible for all distribution outside of France.

Here at Dark Summer, we have been looking to up our web presence for quite a while but between the magazine and the other stuff we get up to, we haven’t been able to find the time. Finally, we have had a bit of spare time and so we have been working hard to get the first stage of our new website up. We hope you like it.

It is, by no means, in its final state as we see the new website as a constantly evolving thing. You, our readers, will have things you want from the site which we would never have thought of, and with the changing nature of the Internet, we know that loads of new opportunities are going to arise in the future. As such, our site will be constantly evolving too.

The new site is now much more capable at providing you with all the UK and European freeskiing news, details on all the events going on around the world, and getting you some tasty morsels of information to get your teeth into.

We will be building on this in the coming weeks and months to off you all a much more integrated UK freeskiing community. We’ll let you upload you photos and videos, link to people, and also have your voices heard. We hope you like what we have so far, and we hope you will be active in the community.

Head on over to www.darksummer.co.uk to check out the new look.

Zack Wragg