Matilda Rapaport

Born

1986-01-29

Died

2016-07-18

Birthplace

Stockholm, Sweden

Biography

Matilda Rapaport was a Swedish extreme free-skier known for her work on Shades of Winter (2013), Pure (2014) and Between (2016). On 14 July 2016 she was caught in an avalanche while filming promotional material for Ubisoft’s upcoming video game in Farellones, Chile. She was 30. Rapaport was filming promos for a video game called Steep, in which multiple players compete against each other in various extreme winter sports, including skiing, snowboarding, wing suit flying and paragliding. To provide realistic footage for the game, Rapaport was alone while descending an Andean mountain above the Chilean village of Farellones near Santiago after a snowstorm had cleared. The powder snow was perfect for her and the filmmakers. But it was loose. Even beneath her crash helmet, she would have heard the roar of an avalanche. But she may have heard it too late. Her manager said she had apparently tried to outrun it. She was buried under the snow and fell into a coma. She was brought to a hospital in Santiago de Chile where she died on 18 July 2016.