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Movie Review: King Skate
A small group of skateboarders ran against the tide in the last years of communism
King Skate
Directed by Šimon Šafránek
With Simon Thiele, Petr Forman, Petr Pletánek, Luděk Váša, Ivan Pelikán
In Czech, some screenings have English subtitles
Before the end of communism, a small group of people in then-Czechoslovakia were deeply into skateboarding, which was barely tolerated during the restrictive days of Normalization.
The new documentary King Skate mixes rare amateur film and even some TV footage from the 1970s and ’80s with interviews from the now older participants to depict skateboarding as a somewhat revolutionary search for freedom.
The film, which premiered this summer at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, is boosted by a soundtrack of punk rock and new wave hits from bands including the Sex Pistols and Plastic Bertrand.
The participants, mostly but not exclusively young men, at first had to make their own boards and figure out what to do with them, as travel was restricted and they mostly couldn’t go to other countries to see how it was done
The amateur filmmakers shot both straight documentary footage of people skating in races as well as scenes of the skaters relaxing and fooling
Later in the 1980s, once the sport gets some recognition, there are some cheesy TV clips in color, showing fashions of the time as well as interviews with the successful competitors.
A small section is in English, as eventually visiting skaters were allowed into Czechoslovakia and Czech skaters could travel to Berlin for competitions
Video on YouTube
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