Fortune: A Film by Hadley Hammer & Sophie Danison

Sometimes all it takes to realize your vast fortune is a closer look.

Is skiing an art, a sport, or something more? For Hadley Hammer, a rediscovery has led her to find that it is indeed an act of play—a movement detached from productivity, an expression untethered from metrics, a way to interact with the world around her. Fortune is a meditation on gratitude, an ode to skiing, and an exploration of the beauty found in unexpected places.

In the winter of 2023, Hammer and filmmaker Sophie Danison traveled to Japan in search of the perfect conditions to capture the feeling of weightlessness in powder skiing. Instead, they encountered three weeks of dry weather. What they found instead of bottomless pow was something deeper—air so cold it made the sky sparkle, meals that tingled the senses, and water so warm it soothed their "zapped nervous systems". In the absence of snow, they discovered a different kind of beauty: Gratitude

At the end of their journey, Hammer pulled a fortune from a drawer at Tokyo’s famed Senso-ji Buddhist Temple. It was the best fortune possible, a reminder that to truly see one's fortune, one must look closely. As she transitioned away from a career in professional skiing, Hammer realized her greatest fortune was not in accolades or achievements but in the moments, friendships, and experiences that skiing had brought her.

Fortune is a call to look closer—to notice the frost-laden trees bowing under the weight of fresh snow, the glint of ice crystals suspended in the air, and the contours of a mountain slope begging to be skied. It is a farewell to the competitive side of skiing and a return to its essence: pure, unmeasured play. Above all, it is a thank you—to the mountains, to the journey, and to the fortune of simply being able to ski.

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