Running down a dream
Film follows Sven Brunso's 30 years of hustling for the perfect face shot

Being a tiny bit jealous of local skier Sven Brunso’s 30-year career ripping up fresh pow all over the world under the guise of “work” may be justified. But here’s the frigid, boot-packing, uphill-both-ways, solo-dawn-patrol truth: it really is work. No, really.

And if you don’t believe it, Brunso’s got his very own documentary now to back it up. Fittingly called, “Sven: Life in Front of the Lens” the 18-minute short film was shot in the San Juans last winter. Directed by Gabe Rovick, of the Denver-based F4D Studio, the film was done in conjunction with Osprey Packs, for whom Brunso is a sponsored athlete.

The film, which will be shown at the San Juan Citizen Alliance’s Backcountry Film Festival on Nov. 21 at the Durango Arts Center, follows Brunso from his humble beginning on the molehills of the Midwest to gracing covers of more than 120 publications.

And what you find along the way is that being a regular fixture in what we can lovingly call the “ski porn” industry did not just fall into Brunso’s lap while he was drinking apres beers at the bar. Rather, it’s a career he tirelessly (some would say obsessively) and doggedly pursued with good old-fashioned hustle.

“The dude knows how to ski in front of the camera,” Backcountry Magazine Photo Editor Mike Lorenz says in the film. “He’s a perfectionist, persistent and persuasive. He wants to get his images published.”

Turning the cameras on the cameras, the film follows Brunso and best bud and photographer Liam Duran, and their friendly banter through the San Juans – setting up shoots and trudging all over Ullr’s white Earth to get the coveted money shot. Brunso has been known to hike the same line 15 times to capture that just-right moment.

“I’m obsessed with getting the perfect shot,” says Brunso. “It’s like a drug. I just want to have it again and again.”

But the film is not all fun and bluebird sun. It details Brunso’s struggles in life as well, including the 2017 death by suicide of his wife, Beth, a well-known and beloved local teacher. After her death, Brunso considered hanging up his skis to focus on his two children, Stowe and Aspen. However, it was they who convinced him to continue to pursue his passion.

“Healing is not linear,” he says in the film. “I realized that (skiing) was going to be my therapy.”

(The film ends with a message to those struggling or those who know people struggling with thoughts of suicide to seek help and shares the 988 suicide hotline number.)

Now 54, Brunso is once again talking about hanging up his skis, at least professionally. “Sven’s retirement has been a running joke for several years,” quips Duran.

But this time, he’s serious. Ish.

“I’m ready to pass the baton,” he says in the film, followed by scenes of him mentoring and skiing with young up-and-coming skiers like Jackson, Wyo.’s, Madison Rose Ostergren and Silverton’s “super grom” Griff Pinto.

Brunso is the first to admit the print ski media isn’t what is used to be. 

“Twenty years ago, there were six or seven major ski magazines, doing five to six issues a year. Now, there are just a couple, and with the exception of Backcountry Magazine, those left only do a couple issues a year,” he said in an interview this week.

According to Brunso, ski print media dropped off precipitously just before and during COVID (RIP Powder), as people started consuming media primarily in digital form. However, in the last few years, he’s seen a renaissance. “Aspirational and image-driven sports like skiing and surfing are best enjoyed in the print medium,” he says. “Ski magazines end up on the coffee table or in the bathroom and may get viewed a few dozen times over the year, but digital media is gone once the viewer scrolls onward.” 

To him, good ski imagery provides a sense of place and needs to be seen in print to be fully appreciated. “I hope print ski media continues to rebound, as I look forward to getting new issues in the mailbox and sitting down in a comfy chair to digest in full-sized splendor,” he says.

And his advice to those newbies looking to grace the cover of Backcountry?

“What I try to let them know is, this is a job,” he says. “But you better make sure you really love what you’re doing, because there are going to be a lot of times that this feels like more work than it feels like it’s worth. But if you love what you’re doing, you never really have a day in the office.”