RIDE: "Skate Kitchen," "Minding the Gap" (film)

Laemmle.com; skatekitchenfilm.com; Crystal Quintero, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Minding the Gap

Compiling over 12 years of footage shot in his hometown of Rockford, Illinois, in Minding the Gap Bing Liu searches for correlations between his skateboarder friends' turbulent [domestic abuse] upbringings and the complexities of modern-day masculinity. As the film unfolds, Bing captures 23-year-old Zack's tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend deteriorate after the birth of their son and 17-year-old Keire struggling with his racial identity as he faces new responsibilities following the death of his father. While navigating a difficult relationship between his camera, his friends, and his own past, Bing ultimately weaves a story of generational forgiveness while exploring the precarious gap between childhood and adulthood. Playing tonight at Monica Film Center Get Tickets

FEATURED REVIEW: Bilge Ebiri, Village Voice Longitudinal in its ambitions, Liu’s film follows the lives of three close friends, all skaters in the depressed Rust Belt town of Rockford, Illinois. The trio have known each other since they were little kids. We see their early years in rough glimpses: attempting skate tricks... Read review

Skate Kitchen
Official trailer starring Skate Kitchen and Jaden Smith

Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing, Summer 2018

 

In the first narrative feature from The Wolfpack director Crystal Moselle, Camille, an introverted teenage skateboarder (newcomer Rachelle Vinberg) from Long Island, meets and befriends an all-girl, New York City-based skateboarding crew called Skate Kitchen. She falls in with the in-crowd, has a falling-out with her mother, and falls for a mysterious skateboarder guy (Jaden Smith), but a relationship with him proves to be trickier to navigate than a kickflip. Writer/director Crystal Moselle immersed herself in the lives of the skater girls and worked closely with them, resulting in the film's authenticity, which combines poetic, atmospheric filmmaking and hypnotic skating sequences. Skate Kitchen precisely captures the experience of women in male-dominated spaces and tells a story of a girl who learns the importance of camaraderie and self-discovery. In theaters August 10th, 2018. skatekitchenfilm.com