SKATE KITCHEN
Crystal Moselle follows MIFF 2015 hit The Wolfpack with her empowering narrative debut, about the cheerfully boisterous skateboarding sisterhood of the film’s title – based on and played by their Insta-ready real-life versions.
Introverted, naïve teen Camille is both fed up with the boys’ club vibe at her local skate park and with her worried mother’s insistence that she give up her deck following a nasty accident. But after meeting up with an all-girl crew who bond over tampon talk and tail slides, Camille’s world opens up.
Featuring skateboarding Instagram star Rachelle Vinberg alongside Jaden Smith, Elizabeth Rodriguez (Orange is the New Black) and the real-life skate collective that lends the film its name, Skate Kitchen was developed in workshops with the cast who bring their genuine camaraderie and joie de vivre to the screen. Moselle captures some sweet tricks and hypnotic skate sequences by these super talented skaters as she crafts a uniquely authentic and fiercely feminist coming-of-age tale.
"Skate Kitchen has plenty to say about the lengths to which young women must go to clear out a little breathing room in testosterone-heavy spaces, but it is first and foremost an irresistible hangout movie, offering a thoroughly millennial, vérité spin on ’80s skater classics like Thrashin’." – Variety