Skate Kitchen

Possibly the world’s first movie based on an Instagram feed…?

Camille lives in suburban New York, with her skateboard as her only friend. Life takes a turn when she meets a group of girls in Manhattan: Here, Camille finds likeminded individuals and a sorely needed foothold in the sense of unity they all share. Director Moselle possesses a unique ability to describe an American subculture, and has turned this into a solid and entertaining film.

Skate Kitchen first started out as a documentary project when Moselle came across the girls’ Instagram account. She began to spend time with them, and soon they had collectively decided to take things further and make a film where the girls would all play fictionalised versions of themselves. Not surprising, then, that the characters in the film and the environment to which they belong all appear very genuine and believable.

Skate Kitchen might remind some viewers of Kids from the 90s, but the likeness is only in the raw way in which the young people are portrayed. The nihilism of Kids is replaced with a need for belonging and community as strategy to survive as a teenager in New York. As such, this is a far more optimistic film, and a very entertaining one at that. Camille is thrown into a brand new setting, and reluctantly and curiously test the limits of her own boundaries – in terms of drugs, sex, love, and friendships. The film itself takes no stance and passes no judgment, but rather lets its characters figure out who they are for themselves.

Crystal Moselle (b. 1980) is from San Diego in California. She is a director and producer, and is best known for the award-winning documentary The Wolfpack, about six brothers who have lived confined in a New York housing apartment all their lives with films as their only stimuli.