Snowboarder Rob Lu at Sugarloaf during the filming of Warren Miller’s “Winter Starts Now.” Rob Kingwill photo

BETHEL — Friday, Dec. 6, saw the Gem theater packed with locals coming to see Warren Miller’s 75 — marking the eighth consecutive year of Warren Miller films at the theater.

Movies selling out at the Gem is not entirely an uncommon event. “Generally our ski movies sell out,” said Wade Kavanaugh, owner of the Gem theater. This film is being shown as part of a tour of Warren Miller movies throughout the country. “We’ve hosted Warren Miller every since we’ve opened (eight years),” said Kavanaugh.

Last year, Bethel locals were treated to the appearance of Bethel’s own Troy Murphy, as his ski character ‘Donny Pelletier’. While Donny is not listed as appearing in Warren Miller’s 75, there was still the incentive of possibly seeing a local skier up on the big screen.

The Warren Miller films are developed by Warren Miller entertainment, an entertainment company founded by Miller. Though the man himself died in 2018, the film company that runs under his name is still going strong. This year’s movie celebrates 75 years of film making, and is advertised on the company’s website as featuring “Shaun White, Zeb Powell, Toby Miller, Danny Davis, and 15-year-old phenom LJ Henriquez, plus skiers Max Hitzig, Lexi duPont, Caite Zeliff, Aaron Blunck, and many more.”

The movie is being toured through the country from theater to theater, with Bethel being one of the stops.
As a ski town, ski movies are quite popular forms of entertainment, which was clearly demonstrated by the completely sold out tickets.