The latest movie from local filmmaker Bill Kerig, “Ready to Fly” will premiere on Friday, February 10th at the Gateway Theaters.
“Ready to Fly” comes just in time for Salt Lake City’s 10-year anniversary celebration of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The film is about Park City’s Lindsey Van, a ski jumper with Olympic dreams. But women’s ski jumping has long been excluded from the Winter Games, making Van and other women like her outcasts in their sport.
Not one to lie down, Van lead the battle to fight against gender discrimination and through her tenacity, won the respect of the Olympic Committee, and succeeded in getting women’s ski jumping into the 2014 games.
According to the filmmakers, this true story of a local woman’s fight against the establishment “tells a tale of sacrifice and determination, of pluck and tragedy, as a very special group of unlikely heroes triumphs over massive obstacles to achieve a dream and change the world for other women in the process.”
“Ready to Fly” is the latest film from Bill Kerig, who is best known as the director of the documentary, “The Edge of Never,” based on his book of the same name. “The Edge of Never” is an acclaimed film about Kye Petersen, the son of the late Trevor Petersen, who travels to Chamonix, France to ski the couloir that claimed his father’s life. The movie showed audiences what is possible when a ski flick is elevated above the “ski porn” that floods theaters in the fall, and how ski movies can be engaging and emotional as long as there is a good story to tell. Judging by the trailer below, it looks like Kerig has done it again.
For more information about “Ready to Fly” including a list of screenings, visit www.readytofly.com