{"id":11356,"date":"2011-02-03T10:55:58","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T18:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=11356"},"modified":"2011-02-03T23:01:04","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T07:01:04","slug":"skateistan-four-wheels-and-a-board-in-kabul-kai-sehr-2011-germanyusa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=11356","title":{"rendered":"Skateistan: Four Wheels and a Board in Kabul (Kai Sehr, 2011): Germany\/USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Lobero Theater.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 “Skateboards for guns?”\u00a0 Interesting concept and one which is vocalised by\u00a0street skater\u00a0Louisa Menke\u00a0when she and her comrades are permitted to skate in the desolate ruins of the Queen’s Palace in Afghanistan, albeit under the watchful eyes of friendly armed guards.<\/p>\n

Back in 2007 humanitarian aid workers (and skaters)\u00a0Oliver “Ollie”\u00a0Percovich and Sharna Nolan began attracting attention\u00a0to their boards in Kabul with the local kids.\u00a0 Eager to share their\u00a0skills, friendship and\u00a0hope to 50% of the population, Percovich and Nolan then\u00a0demonstrated, taught, and revived an old fountain into a skate\u00a0park, which\u00a0eventually became a popular hangout to poor street kids as well as the\u00a0affluent, including\u00a0 local girls who are\u00a0forbidden to participate in outdoor sports.<\/p>\n

The birth of Skateistan<\/em><\/a>\u00a0began, but\u00a0then a local heavy, with intent to demonstrate his power, filled the skatepark\/fountain with water “for security issues,” which led Ollie to envision a bigger and better, state-of-the-art indoor park.\u00a0 Determination, hard work,\u00a0and support from the governments of Norway, Canada, Germany and Denmark, turned the goal into a reality\u00a0in the biggest indoor sports facility of Afghanistan, built within one year.<\/p>\n

The film\u00a0begins a bit slow and unsure in direction,\u00a0but soon gains in momentum as Ollie seeks the help of his skater friend Kenny Reed\u00a0and others to join him.\u00a0 They seek out interesting skate spots, including an abandoned pool which was used by the Taliban to torture and hang victims from the diving board.\u00a0 It tugs at your heart to witness pro-skaters\u00a0Reed, Menke, Cairo Foster, and Maysam Faraj give demos to the war casualties, while teaching\u00a0the kids technique, and all the while observing the transformation taking place\u00a0within their own hearts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is an eye-opener for any Westerner, especially Santa Barbarans who view skateboarding as a sport, a way of life, and a mode of transportation, to see these little kids deriving the simplest of pleasure on a board, while momentarily escaping their reality.\u00a0 After the film’s premiere\u00a0on January 29th at the Lobero, the cast\u00a0received a huge round of applause with a standing ovation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Lobero Theater. \u00a0 “Skateboards for guns?”\u00a0 Interesting concept and one which is vocalised by\u00a0street skater\u00a0Louisa Menke\u00a0when she and her comrades are permitted to skate in the desolate ruins of the Queen’s Palace in Afghanistan, albeit under the watchful eyes of friendly armed guards. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,3,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentary","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}