A couple weeks back I was Googling Sundance to find out what was going on there when a link popped up for a short doc called Skateistan. The short was available on-line promoted by both the Festival and Diesel clothing along with several other short films (you can watch it to the right). In an accompanying article it was noted that a feature version would be opening at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last week so I shot up the coast to get a look and talk to the filmmakers.
My first question was why did the film open as a short at Sundance and as a feature at Santa Barbara and Berlin? Quick answer. It didn’t. The information on-line was incorrect. The real story is that the short film piggybacked on the feature film during production and the films are separate entities about the same subject.
That subject, Oliver Percovich, an Australian skateboarding fan who ended up in Afghanistan after following his girlfriend to the war torn country when she accepted a job with an NGO in Kabul. I don’t know what it is about Aussies and their wanderlust but they seem to be willing to go anywhere for an adventure. Or a girl.
When Oliver got to Kabul, he realized that he didn’t really have anything to do. That’s when he decided to have some skateboards flown in and soon he was skating through the streets and handing out boards to local children. Okay, the story is a little more complicated than that.
Percovich raised money to build a skate park, worked with the Afghan Olympic Committee to get a space to build it, helped vaccinate the children with the NGO and even got professional skateboarders Cairo Foster, Kenny Reed, Louisa Menke and Maysam Faraj to come to Afghanistan to work with the kids.
Skateistan is the quintessential feel good story and I think it will have a life on both the festival circuit and in specialty theaters. What was heartening for me was the number of people I have talked to that already saw the short film and want to see the feature version. Because this is one of the first films I have seen in a long time that actually shows people on the streets in Afghanistan. Granted it’s mostly kids, but still it’s good to see what daily life in Kabul looks like at the present time.
I’ve heard many friends complain we never get to see what daily life looks like in Afghanistan or Iraq ever since we invaded the two countries in 2001 and 2003. Skateistan is a direct answer to that complaint. One that German director Kai Sehr was very conscious of while making the film. “It was important to show life as it is in Kabul without attaching Western values to everything you see,” he told me.
Initially Sehr was going to go the normal route and get a fixer, bodyguards and the whole nine yards. But after discovering that Ollie and his friends worked in Kabul without all that nonsense he decided to film the action with the fewest number of people possible. It shows in the film. It plays like an episode of “Globe Trekker,” only in a country considered a war zone by many people, which it is in many other parts of the country. You can re-watch 2010 Academy Award nominee Restrepo to view that part of the country.
It might be hard for many people to understand that both films do indeed reflect the current situation in Afghanistan. All too often we forget how big Afghanistan actually is geographically or that a country can be war torn in one area and relatively safe in another. That’s why Skateistan makes such a good companion piece to a film like Restrepo.
When I wrote an article about Restrepo last year a lot of people thought I was calling the film out when I pointed out that the Sundance Film Fest was pushing a film with a pro war agenda, however inadvertently. Because while co-director Sebastian Junger was promoting continued American intervention in Afghanistan, he, at the same time, was promoting his film. Not everyone agreed with me on that one.
Considering Junger’s views, maybe he should have made a film like Skateistan instead of Restrepo. Because when you see the children in this film, going to school, learning to ride skateboards and smiling their big bright smiles you might have to rethink any thoughts of simply abandoning the people of Afghanistan. Sehr certainly did after making his film.
I asked him if he thought the West should remain in Afghanistan at this time he admitted he was unsure. “That’s a really tough one,” he responded. Sehr admitted he was against continued involvement prior to spending a year filming Percovich. But after witnessing young children, especially young women, getting educated for the first time in years he’s not so sure. “We made a certain promise to these people. And things for young women are different now, better. So, at which point do we break that promise.”
Sehr’s film certainly asks his viewers questions. I think that’s a good thing.
You can check out the feature trailer directly below.
