Cute Café releases their second film, What Do You Mean?

Powered by groupchats and sleepovers, Cute Café’s structure is amorphous, taking various shapes depending on who’s available to ride or lend a shovel. Their films are made for themselves and their love of skiing. They’re as much about sharing the group’s ‘esprit de corps’ as they are about remembering fun times and great seasons shared together. 

Filmed primarily in Switzerland with a sprinkle of Swedish flair, What do you mean? embodies the relatable, smile-inducing homie film that effortlessly shares the approachability, creativity, and joy there is to be found from skiing street with friends. Every feature—from roof spot to rock jib—is hit with natural speed or the timeless shovel pull, and there are smiles, hugs, and laughs after every try. These girls show that you don’t need insane terrain, perfectly-shaped parks or chest-deep pow to have a good time skiing—all it takes are your friends, your skis, and maybe a couple of Tuffys. 

We caught up with Alice Michel over a coffee—in a cute cafe in Martigny nonetheless—to get to know Cute Café, and how they bring such a cheerful approach to the seemingly increasingly serious sport of skiing. Humble and understated, Alice revealed the foundation of Cute Café’s laid-back, carefree approach, and their drive to remind everyone that at its core, skiing is simply better with friends.

Crème de la (café) crème

Cute Café’s origins are as organic as they come. Alice and Anouck Brodard make up the backbone of the crew, and have ridden together since age seven at the Verbier Ski Club. Since then other friends have joined, united by their shared love of skiing, skating, or just hanging out. “Some of us are in Bern, some of us are in Valais, so we have sleepovers depending on where it snows,” Alice says over her small cappuccino. 

After years of shooting iPhone clips in the park up at Verbier, Leysin, and around Switzerland, the girls took to the streets to fully embrace their creativity. Like many others, their street missions are coordinated in a groupchat, with each session having a slightly different flavor. “It’s always a different combination of friends and we’re always open to having anyone who isn’t ‘Cute Café’ join us,” Alice says. “It’s really all about having fun, and if someone else is available, we are always stoked to have them along.”

Though they’re incredibly talented, filming street with Cute Café is never serious—cheers after every trick, hugs, high fives, and goofiness are the norm. For all the girls, their ski videos are simply a byproduct of their friendship. “For us it’s cool to have a memory of the season,” Alice explains. “The films are mainly for ourselves to have a little video project to look back to.” 

The crew might have a relaxed vibe, but make no mistake, the edit is stacked with heaters and oozes with style. Double kinks are crushed, roofs are dropped, and it sure was a bad time to be a stone retaining wall in Valais. The girls went really hard and filmed some sick spots, but more importantly, they looked like they were having the best time while doing it. Because for them, at the end of the day, it’s less about the banger clips and more about documenting moments and the joy behind them. “We want to bring out the fun and approachability of the street, and not the gnarly, ‘this is a life or death, if I fall I get fucked’ vibe, but moreso a fun street approach,” Alice explains. 

This essence of Cute Café is best illustrated by their b-roll ender, where Jenn Folkesson slides across a frozen lake at sunset through the arms of Anouck and Alice in the shape of a heart. While the shot is certainly beautiful in its own right, you can’t help but grin at the silliness of it, and its placement at the end of the film leaves you with the feeling that skiing is for your friends, and for the love of it. “We always like to do little fun things like that, like hearts and peace and whatever. We’re not trying to be all gangster, kinda the opposite,” Alice says with a laugh.

The secret ingredients

Despite building a strong street resume with Buldoz and various Colorado crews, Alice points to Rosina Friedel (FLINTA community advocate and Bucket Clips mastermind) as the major spark behind the individuality and creativity that define her skiing and filmmaking. “I love Rosina’s riding,” Alice says. “To me she was the first one to have a different approach to skiing that was focused on creativity above the gnarliest stunts, even if what she was doing was gnarly.” 

Beyond taking inspiration from her riding, filming for Connected with Rosina provided Alice with practical skills that have helped her develop Cute Café. “It is very much thanks to Rosina. Filming with her gave me the tools and the understanding to see how she organizes and how she makes a movie.” Alice continues, “I wanted to try and do that with my friends here and give everyone a portrait that they can be proud of. Something we can share with the ski community.”

It’s no surprise that the spirit championed by Rosina in Connected—shared passion, camaraderie and unpretentiousness—lives on in Cute Café’s films. Rooted in inclusion and diversity, Cute Café always uplift women in their films, both by happenstance and by design. “When we make movies, we always try to use music that’s only made by women. We do a lot of research to make sure we represent women artists and that they’re cool people that we align with,” Alice explains. “We try to bring that positive feminine energy to the videos—the music choice is always intentional.”

Cute Café has forged their own identity without even trying, purely from a shared passion for skiing and a love of spending time with each other. “We ride together because we like to hang out together, but also because we like to make things together—it’s definitely more than just skiing,” Alice says with a smile, finishing her coffee. “Even if we do it for us, it’s always so fun to share something. This little niche thing makes so much sense and means the world to us. People who aren’t in our ski world don’t understand. They would come up to us in the streets and ask us what we were doing. To us it makes total sense, we could only really reply with, ‘What do you mean?’”

We understand what you mean Alice, and anyone who watches this film will without a doubt get it too. So sit down, brew yourself a nice warm double tall oat latte, and enjoy the latest friendly aromas from Cute Café.

Featuring :

Anouck Brodard @darbro_

Eva-Maria Kobel @evamariakobel

Jenn Folkesson @jennfff

Alice Michel @yalicee_

Martina Windlin @_martinimcfly

Elsa Sjöstedt @elsa.sjo