It’s time to get EUROtic!!!

GETTING EUROtic

Lipstick Productions first came about in 2011 when Conny Bleicher planned on starting a European girls snowboard movie project to bring together and showcase the best talents in European female snowboarding. Featuring a number of Nikita team riders, the girls‘ travels took them to locations in Austria, Finland, Turkey, France and Norway in order to film and when the first teaser dropped, Conny was pretty overwhelmed with the immediate response. Last September the fruits of their labour was produced; “5 more minutes…please?!”. The first release saw them win the ‘Coup de Couer’ award at the Snowboard Garden Festival, Grenoble on 15th October 2011 before the Official World Premiere took place at the Weekender Club in Innsbruck on 21st October with subsequent successful premieres in Bratislava, Vienna, London, Zurich, Munich, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Berlin and Prague! With plenty of humour, the movie not only touched on the unquestionable skills of the riders and the obvious fun of they have riding but also the challenges they faced. With the achievement of the first ever Lipstick Productions movie, Conny was soon talking about going into a second season with the help of Nikita’s Ana Rumiha as sidekick and Rene Gallo on board as main filmer, editor and film director – the only guy that can handle them all! In the run up to the second movie ‘EUROtic’, due to drop this autumn, the girls have been releasing a series of podacsts from Austria, Iceland, Macedonia, tripping from Atlantic to the Mediterranean and sessioning Laax. These girls are true athletes; strong, driven, inspiring and fearless…and they know how to have fun. In anticipation of the new movie, again sponsored and supported by Nikita, here’s an overview of what’s been happening in the run up to it.

Words by Conny Bleicher.
“We basically started filming 1st of January when the first crew (Ana, Basa and Urska) had already been to Iceland for three weeks to film street. While the Icelandic crew were struggling with constantly changing weather, the other crew (Julia, Diana, Tini, Lisa and Conny) were making the best of Austrian heavy snow falls which resulted with a few amazing backcountry sessions. We were relieved to close January with almost as much footage as we had at the end of last year’s season, giving us some breathing space to continue the rest of our filming. Half the girls spent February competing while the other half (Ana, Basa, Julia and Conny) went on the annual trip to a new country. After last year‘s success in Turkey we decided this one should be in Macedonia. As it always is with us, this trip was full of unexpected adventures from horse riding, cat boarding to being cut off on the mountain during the big storm. Straight after Macedonia the pow group separated, half back to Austria and half (Ana and Basa) to Helsinki for some more street action. Since last year‘s Helsinki trip was quite a fail, this year we were ready to make it as productive as possible. It didn’t work out 100% as planned but the progress from last year was obvious and we were pretty happy with all the things we learned whilst aware there was still more to work on. Ending March, the whole crew took a week off to get ready for our first park shoot in the French Pyrenees. We were supposed to have an exclusive park shoot but due to bad snow conditions and a few misunderstandings we ended up on a mountain with absolutely nothing to do. We soon came up with a new plan and decided to make the best of it. We packed our snowboards and headed to Hossegor for the first surf of the year. We literally drove for three hours just to catch few waves and head straight back to Andorra, where we heard the snow conditions were much better. Since rain seemed to follow us, Andorra was no exception and after a day cruising the rainy mountain we decided to go to Barcelona and end this trip as real tourists. We came back with no real snowboard shots but full of different impressions, laughing at ourselves as to how the kilometers we clocked up in a brand new rental car, never knowing where we’d end up the following day.

Next up we heard Austria was due more powder, perfect to get further shots and enjoy the relaxed glacier spring sessions. Some of us will keep riding througout the summer, others will change their snowboards for surf and skateboards. No matter what the girls decide to do, it will be shown in our upcoming movie so it’s as much a surprise for us as it is for everybody else. Not everything is planned, that’s why it’s even more fun.” All the action to date has been captured in a series of LIPTRIP episodes, a new feature of the project and an exclusive insight into the European girls snowboard scene, with off camera moments and some B-footage. The film’s teaser is due out any day now and the full movie is due to premiere at the Snowboard Garden Festival in Grenoble from 11th – 13th October; watch out for a series of premieres to follow and subsequent online launch. Stay tuned!!

Making sure you don’t miss the action so far, here’s ALL Liptrip Episodes:

#1 – Filmed at the girls‘ home mountain in Austria, featuring Julia Baumgartner, Lisa Filzmoser, Conny Bleicher, Tini Gruber and Diana Sadlowski –

#2 – Eastern girls Ana Rumiha, Basa Stevulova and Urska Pribosic spent January in Iceland –

#3 – At Popova Shapka, Macedonia chasing powder in the Balkan Revelstoke! Featuring Ana Rumiha, Basa Stevulova, Julia Baumgartner and Conny Bleicher –

#4 – Titled ROADTRIPPING, it was supposed to be an exclusive Lipstick Park shooting in the Pyrenees and ended up as a roadtrip from the Atlantic to Mediterranean and back! – featuring Ana Rumiha, Basa Stevulova, Urska Pribosic, Diana Sadlowski, Suray Fernandez and Conny Bleicher –