Introverted 18-year-old skateboarder Camille lives on Long Island with her single mother. After a startling injury, she promises her mother she'll hang up her board, but the pull to skate is too strong. On Instagram she discovers “The Skate Kitchen” a subculture of girls whose lives revolve around skating, and bravely seeks them out. The sexually fluid, rambunctious big-city girls quickly adopt the naive Camille as part of their gang, and soon they're featuring her in trick videos and exposing her to a wild life she's never experienced. For the first time, she feels acceptance and support from other girls. However, she soon learns the complexity of friendship when she befriends a boy from a rival group of skaters.
Writer/director Crystal Moselle (THE WOLFPACK) 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.
”Moselle puts her observant eye to work and tenderly brings Camille to life with reverence, earning both the respect and the curiosity of the audience…SKATE KITCHEN is elevated by the big-hearted spirit of beloved high-school-set films, except with something superior in its disposal than barren school hallways: New York City streets that pulsate with energy.” —Tomris Laffly, Film School Rejects
“Cinematographer Shabier Kirchner gives the New York locations a welcoming glow, and when Camille skates, the film seems to leap from gritty reality to transcendent lyricism… a funny and stirring saga of female empowerment that will no doubt delight young women who skate while inspiring many more to pick up a board. It also heralds Moselle as a director who can easily switch stance on both sides of the fiction/non-fiction divide.” —Alfonso Duralde, The Wrap
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