Skate Kitchen

Crystal Moselle got this film out of two girls she met by chance on the subway. Both belonged to a real crew of skaters in New York calling themselves Skate Kitchen; Moselle first made the short That One Day with them and then wrote the feature. The crew members play fictionalised versions of themselves. Rachelle Vinberg, one of the group's founders, plays Camille, a shy newcomer crossing from Long Island into Manhattan and into the group. Ajani Russell, Nina Moran and Dede Lovelace are also in it. The film's strength comes less from skating than from the collective. The near-improvised register of the dialogue and the way the girls know each other is not something a screenplay can construct; it arrived with them. The skating is real for the same reason, because the people doing it already do it. It screened at Sundance in 2018. Who it is for: viewers who like films about young people, skate culture and performance close to life. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a tight plot, since the film stays inside the everyday.