Laurent De Martin's - From Switzerland With Love
After solid parts in Level 1 Laurent De Martin startet his own movie project called “From Switzerland With Love”. Together with his friend and film maker Titouan Bessire they already produced 10 webisodes under the same name and they brought a fresh way to present Laurent’s skiing.
An interview with Laurent about the current state of his movie project.
Was the new self-produced movie a reaction to Level 1 stopping feature length ski movies?
Yes of course. I knew since the beginning of the last winter filming for Level 1 (Romance) that they will stop, or change their way of movie production. This motivated me to start my own webisodes even when it was hard to work on this besides filming with Level 1. We were able to show the LDM fun camps, the Riverstyle event and much more behind the scenes, which the people here were interested in. Like this we also knew that we could be in a good position for the future. We didn’t know from the beginning that it will end in such a big project. But it was also important for me to do something else this season than the webisodes we did last winter.
The actual idea for the movie came after winter 18/19 when we realized that many people do short clips and we really wanted to do something more sustainable. Like this we can focus on quality content and be more proud of our outcome.
Why did you decide to exclusively stay in Switzerland and specially in your region “Region Dents du Midi”?
Because we knew Titouan will become a father during the summer of 2019 (smiling). So it would have been hard to travel around. But this is not the only reason of course. I traveled so much with Level 1 and I’m really thankful for that. Today I’m at the point where I really want to push skiing for the youth in Switzerland and specially around the area where I grew up. With the movie we show different kinds of skiing and that a freeskier doesn’t have travel far to enjoy this sport.
Furthermore, personally, I’m so happy to spend all winter around my home, discover spots, places, and bring international riders here. We live in such a amazing place and I have the feeling that I only know a small part of the potential of our mountains.
First short Making of from Switzerland with Love.
The first part of your movie as we can see it on the film’s Website is finished and now you somehow wait for snow. What’s your plans and what did you achieve so far?
Even with a really dry January, Will Berman, our international guest for the street part, joined Remco Kayser and the crew to film the street segment. We managed to finish it with going higher in altitude than excepted. Our first plan was to film everything in the cities, but as the snow was missing we drove trough Wallis looking for spots higher than 1500m. Now we are really happy on the outcome and of the productivity of the crew.
After that, the goal is to film the Backcountry skiing segment. Like everybody knows, we had a really beautiful January but with warm conditions and very little snowfalls. We got one good day and otherwise we are scooping and building jumps to be ready when the snow arrives. That’s the difficult situation when we are depending on snow conditions in one area. We don’t want to chase the snow around the globe. Until now, it worked out pretty well, because we are well prepared and organized.
So your movie is also integrating multiple international and national well known professional skiers in each segment of the movie?
Yeah, I didnt want to do a movie alone, as the main part of filming skiing in every aspect is to work with different riders in a good vibe. In a way, my goal was to find the vibe of when we started to film with Awone Films back in the days. In the production crew, I wanted to work with people that I know really well, that helped in my “career” and that are as motivated as me to do this. For example, Jules Guarneri, filmer that we started Awone Films with, is in the crew to help us. I want speak about Numa as well, shaper and life-assistant ( smiling). He’s a childhood friend and was always down to help us when ever he could.
Speaking of riders, we are inviting one international rider for every segment. The story of the movie will be told trough their eyes. A other important point for me was to integrate one or two locals riders for every segment. We have such a amazing scene in the french part of Switzerland, and our goal is to push that as well.
Another important point during your season is the 7Peaks Riverstyle in Morgins the 27 and 28 of March?
It’s a big party around a huge jump in the middle of my hometown. It’s not a really competition, it’s a show with skiers, snowboarders and bikers jumping in the front of a big crowd. There are music shows as well.
A few friends came to me with this idea five years ago, and we never stopped doing it since then. We started from nothing and now it’s big event the french part of Switzerland. Personally, that event helped me a lot to be more known in my valley, and promoting our sport.
“It was awesome to hit spots with Laurent and Will again! We woke up early, drank a lot of coffee, listened to French trap while driving to the spots, shoveled gargantuan amounts of snow, drank some more coffee, hit pretty big (and scary) spots, got some very nice shots and ate delicious food (mostly cooked by Numas) in the evening.”
During the Event you also organize a kids day, where more than 100 young skiers take a ride with you and your friends in the Superpark in Les Crosets. How important is encouraging the youth for skiing?
We introduced that kids day 2 years ago. We saw that so many kids were coming to the event and we wanted to offer them a more personal experience. During the day of Saturday, all the riders are going to the Superpark to ski with the kids. We go back to the event with them. After skiing with us, they can see us jumping at the event. I think they will remember the event even more and hopefully make them want to ski more.
This Kids day gave me the idea of doing the LDM fun camps for the kids as well. The goal is to spend a weekend in the park with 10 youth riders, to coach them and show them a bit of the life of pro-freeskier.
Merci Laurent, stay up to date on his project on their website!
