Rollin’on, a short film on skateboarding as an alternative to juvenile street-crime and featuring skateboarding legend TONY HAWK, will be screened at the London Film Festival as part of a collection of shorts called London Calling on the 27th October 2008 at 21:15 @ NFT1 BFI Southbank.
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The screening venue is only few meters away from the Southbank skate park, which is facing a battle against plans for its closure and might be replaced in the near future by shops, bars and restaurants.
DIRECTOR'S COMMENTS - TAG
Rollin’ On tells the story of a group of young skateboarders and features the legendary Tony Hawk. It looks at skateboarding as a viable alternative to guns, street crime and boredom.
SYNOPSIS
ROLLIN’ ON is a film about Skateboarding, hard work and perseverance. The film tells the story of a group of young people who regularly meet at Finsbury Park skate-park. Its main narrative is given by an interview with legendary skateboarding champion Tony Hawk, in which he tells the story of his first rolling steps into the world of skateboarding and how much skateboarding contributed to changing his life from bullied shy boy and outsider to revered professional skateboarding champion and video game character. The film draws a parallel between the lives of the young skateboarders in Haringey and their hero and hopefully will prove very inspirational among viewers. The film touches on themes such as bulling at school, social barriers and prejudice, as well as investigating weather skateboarding could offer a viable alternative to gun, knives, street crime in general and boredom.
STORIES
One of the people involved in the production of Rollin’ on is a black kid from a poor London suburb. While his friends were starting to get involved in crime, he started skateboarding. One day, while he was hanging around with his friends in the street, one of his friends started running and he found himself running with him and his other friends. Later he realized his friend had just stolen something and was being chased. He made a choice and stopped seeing his street friends and got more involved with the skaters’ community.
While his friend eventually went to prison for armed robbery, he is today a successful Film-maker. He was given a chance and an alternative at the right time in his life. Hopefully the message of the film will get out there.
DIRECTOR’S BIO
Paola has worked with award winning directors such as Ken Loach, and Jamil Dehlavi (Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 1981).
She has recently funded her own film production company called Graffiti Films LTD. She has worked as a director producer for the BBC and independent productions.
Rolling on is her first funded short and was short-listed for the ITV LOCAL BOBS AWARDS and screened at BAFTA and now the LONDON FILM FESTIVAL
Paola's main background is journalism and current affairs and includes contract,s covering various roles, with daily news programmes and documentaries for BBC, Arab TV, Discovery Channel, 20th Century Fox, Channel 4 and History Channel, as well as feature films and independent productions.
She is fluent in Italian and Spanish and has worked on location in Italy, Spain, Germany, USA and Holland for various networks including Discovery USA, History Channel and BBC.
She specializes in making human-interest documentaries and films, with a strong social and cultural resonance.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I am interested in making films that make a difference and inspire people. If I can inspire one person, than I have done my job well.
I hope Rollin’ On can inspire people in two ways. I hope it can inspire kids to keep away from guns and knives and don’t waste their childhood and teen years or throw their lives away through crime. I hope it can help kids to develop an identity and built their confidence by inspiring them and pushing them to do something constructive rather than destructive like carrying a weapon. I hope it helps them to re-define their idea of ‘cool’ and shape their personality on positive role models, such as Tony Hawk.
On the other hand I hope the film can inspire decision makers and politicians and help them making the right choices when it comes to building spaces where kids can play and give them structures where they can play sports or practice other activities, where they can find motivation,
inspiration, role models away from the street and the rules of street gangs. Sometimes all these kids need is a chance to open their lives. It all very well to fight crime and its consequences, but prevention is everything. It means investing in a new generation of adults.