Ugandan snowboarder Brolin Mawejje wants to go to the Olympics—before becoming a surgeon.

Shot on location in:
Kampala, Uganda | Bariloche, Argentina | Trento, Italy| Whistler, Canada | Jackson, Wyoming | Park City, Utah | Boston, Massachusetts

When Brolin Mawejje and Phil Hessler met nearly 12 years ago, they had no idea that their friendship would spawn the film that launched WZRD media. Brolin grew up in Kampala, Uganda with eight siblings. He had no idea where his mother was until he got a mysterious phone call informing him that he would be moving to the U.S. to live with his mother. Brolin landed in Boston, Massachusetts on a cold January night and enrolled in school a few days later. He faced isolation as a young boy in an unfamiliar culture with a mother he just met.

Phil and Brolin became fast friends as they bonded over a shared love for skateboarding. In the winter, Phil and his family introduced Brolin to snowboarding. While on the mountain, Brolin found solace as he felt for the first time he could exist in the moment without his past haunting him. In 2009, when Phil and his family moved to Jackson, Wyoming they extended the invitation to Brolin. Once in Jackson, the duo had the opportunity to snowboard nearly everyday and compete all over the northwest. The two went on to attend Westminster College in Salt Lake City where they met Galen Knowles who came on board to direct the film.

After compiling years of footage, we started scratching our heads as we questioned how to go about editing the film. This led us to a brilliant idea: create a film class at our college where students learn how to edit by constructing a radio cut of our film. So that is what we did! We reached out to some of our closest friends who knew about the project and were able to fly in our EP bi-weekly to teach the cut. We ended up with an entire radio cut of the film. During the following three months, we polished and finessed the cut.