You know it’s ski season ahead when the snow films start making an appearance and this one is a corker to fuel the stoke.
Divya Gordon is a self-taught documentary filmmaker from Sydney Australia and now the name behind MAVEN, an inspiring film for all budding backcountry skiers and boarders.
The short film showcases and celebrates female adventurers taking on the Snowy Mountains backcountry.
With backcountry guide Chess Smee at the helm, Gordon documents Smee as she takes on some serious goals for the 2023 season, including hitting Australia’s 11 highest peaks in one day.
This intimate discovery of Australia’s female focused backcountry community with the mantra “to empower women with the skills and confidence and do anything they dare to dream.”
MAVEN isn’t Gordon’s first film rodeo. After leaving her corporate roots in Sydney, she embraced a nomadic lifestyle in her van, growing her connection with adventure communities while pursuing her passion for filmmaking.
Her first adventure documentary The First Worm featured in global film festivals and centred on a highline boulder wrap in the steepest ski lines in mainland Australia.
Gordon’s Seven 7 Seven film was another climbing film focusing on the highline community.
Seven hundred and seventy seven metres is the bizarre number that measures a gap between two cliffs. In March 2021, a group of dirty and like minded individuals came together to break the Australian record for longest line rigged and bridge this 777m gap.
“I spent 4 years in the highlining community before I felt fit to represent it through film. Packed into ‘Seven 7 Seven’ is the heart and soul of Aussie highlining, as seen by me,” says Gordon in her director’s statement.
Gordon shot the entire MAVEN film on the lightweight and versatile Nikon Z 8 adventure camera. She launches MAVEN, in partnership with Nikon and Arc’teryx on April 11 at the Hayden Orpheum in Sydney, followed by a nationwide film tour with Warren Miller.
