Minding the Gap

Three friends skate in Rockford, Illinois: Zack, Keire, and Bing, who holds the camera. Years pass. Zack becomes a father and his relationship turns violent. Keire deals with his father's death and with what being Black means in that town. Bing asks his own mother about the years his stepfather beat them. The film is not interested in skateboarding. It is interested in violence being inherited: all three grew up with beatings at home, and while showing Zack repeating it in his own family the film does not cast him out; it sits down opposite him and asks. The director questioning himself is its hardest part. The form is twelve years of shooting: skate footage, conversations at home, confessions in cars. Because the camera belongs to a friend, people forget it is there. Bing Liu directed, with Steve James as executive producer. It won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Filmmaking at Sundance in 2018 and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards. Who it is for: viewers who like observational documentary and portraits built over long stretches of time. Who it is not for: anyone sensitive about domestic violence. The film carries it both as narrative and as the director's own life and offers no consolation anywhere.