Sami hit me up the other day on facebook, I'd interviewed him last season and he asked if I'd write some words about his new movie, Birds 2D. He isn't much of a self-promoter generally so I figured, this must be something special.

I wanted to give a genuine impression of watching the film, so I attempted to write my thoughts as I watched but my initial draft ended up containing passages like ... "I hit play..."thiiis is a biiiirds woooorlldd". First impressions, certainly wait-what!? Ok, fry those piggybank guts, this is going to be an interesting ride."

I realised that what I'd written was impossible to follow and far longer than anyone would read, so I decided to publish this a brief summary and let the film do most of the talking.

The intro is something else. I can't imagine how much work it must have taken to put together and it's totally different. You know how some people try to fake eccentricity? Sami is a genuine weirdo. Once you get over the strangeness of the intro, his part is first and if you like creative skiing you should watch this. Simple. It might not be everyone's thing, it isn't textbook that's for sure. What it is, is raw creative skiing, there are tricks in here I've never seen done before. Think a sort of 'all terrain, skiing Scott Stevens'. With girl's hair.

As the segments pass we see snowboarding, mountain biking, skateboarding and some more mental skiing. All from a group of friends, from a tiny ass town in an unknown swiss valley. No matter what it is these guys are doing, they are fucking good at it. Kickflip in a fullpipe from a snowboarder? Can't fault that. Sami's older brother David rips too, he can even kind of sing.

As a sidenote, I'd love to see more of this type of film in the ski scene. It's relatively easy, if expensive, to take trips and film in a load of amazing locations. It's relatively easy to round up the best riders from all over the place and over produce a movie. It takes a lot more creativity and dedication to film a whole movie (minus a couple of shots Sami filmed on his travels) with your friends in the few square miles surrounding your home and make it something enjoyable for a complete outsider to watch.

This isn't a ski movie as such. It's basically about friendship, fun and not giving a fuck. The Glarus Valley Buegl-Die-Huegl Club even made the soundtrack in a garage, drew and animated a bunch of birds and even did some claymation. If you want to watch professional production and dub corks don't bother with this. But if you like the idea of seeing a bunch of guys with funny accents sing punk songs and get crazy then check it out. It just might be my favourite movie of the year. Without further ado, Birds 2D:

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/740627/Private-Video-on-Vimeo

P.S. Sorry Sami, Newschoolers hates Umlauts.