Wanaka freeskier Janina Kuzma features in an extreme action sports film starring the world’s best female talent, which will premiere in Wanaka this week.

Shades of Winter: Between will be unveiled to New Zealand’s snow sports elite and industry VIPs at a screening this Friday (November 25). In the full-length feature film, Kuzma stars alongside Olympic gold medallist Julia Mancuso (USA), two-time Freeride World Tour champion Nadine Wallner (Austria), Evelina Nilsson (Sweden), pro skier and Between filmmaker Sandra Lahnsteiner, and the late Matilda Rapaport (Sweden). Three-time world surf champion Carissa Moore also features in two major surfing segments in the film.

A two-year project, Between features the women travelling the globe to conquer some of the most exotic and challenging slopes in the world, including Alaska, Hawaii, Norway, Canada, the European Alps and the Southern Alps of NZ. The film captures the ‘between’ moments throughout the action and is also a tribute to Rapaport, who died in an avalanche in July.

Janina has featured in all three films of the Shades of Winter series, and she initiated the New Zealand segment. "It was a dream of mine to one day get the SOW crew to NZ to film a segment. New Zealand has some of the best terrain in the world available by helicopter and I wanted to showcase that. When Sandra proposed the movie Between to me I said she had to film in New Zealand, and we made it happen.”

The footage includes heli-skiing on the Mount Larkins Range near Glenorchy, as well as in and around Wanaka. "The girls had never been down to New Zealand so they didn’t know what it would be like. They were blown away,” Janina said.

Janina is a Winter Olympian in halfpipe (currently ranked fourth in the world) but she returns to her big mountain skiing roots in Between.

Some of the country’s snowsports elite will join Kuzma at Cinema Paradiso on Friday to watch the film, including Beau-James Wells, Sam Smoothy, Nicola Campbell, Anna Smoothy, Sam Lee, Craig Murray and Fraser McDougall – before they all embark on their northern hemisphere season.

The premiere, and a special public screening in Wanaka on Saturday (November 26), will act as a fundraiser for a foundation currently being set up in memory of Matilda Rapaport. The film won’t be released for wider distribution until the worldwide tour is completed. Screenings are taking place in the countries where the movie was filmed, as well as at some major international film festivals. Between is expected to be available on iTunes by March 2017.

Kuzma leaves New Zealand next month for the northern hemisphere season when she will focus on qualifying for the 2018 Winter Olympics. She’ll also be filming for the fourth Shades of Winter film in between training and competitions.

PHOTO: Simon Darby