San Francisco Film Society Presents SF360 Film+Club: Stuntwood: the Birth, Life and Death of a Skateboard and Freedom of Space at Mezzanine

SF360 Film+Club Takes Movies out of the Theater and Puts Them in a Club

October 2, 2007

San Francisco, CA –The San Francisco Film Society’s SF360 Film+Club, a monthly social screening series, returns to Mezzanine (444 Jessie Street at Mint), on Tuesday, October 30 with two heady documentaries on the industry and culture of skateboarding, Stuntwood: The Birth, Life and Death of a Skateboard and Freedom of Space.

“Skateboarders and those in the skateboarding industry have long been misunderstood as know-nothings, rebels and disaffected youths,” said Sean Uyehara of the Film Society. “Hopefully, these videos will reveal them and the industry for what they are. Creative and progressive know-nothing, rebellious disaffected youths.”

Stuntwood: The Birth, Life and Death of a Skateboard, directed by Jeff Roe, details the process of and science behind wooden skateboard manufacturing. With the meteoric rise in skateboarding’s popularity, millions of boards are produced each year. Surprisingly, almost all of the wood used to make the boards comes from a circumscribed area in the Minnesota lakes region. Stuntwood explains why this is and what the potential environmental effects are. The cofeature, Steve Olpin’s Freedom of Space investigates skateboarders’ longstanding struggles over the rights to and use of public space. The film uses interviews with architects and activists, and includes remarkable and eye-opening arguments from Philadelphia's Love Park designer Edmund Bacon. In illustrating several examples of the reclamation of unused urban spaces by young skaters, the film points the way to a possible future of public space use, while revealing the bold and progressive activities of one of society's most independent and forward thinking communities, skateboarders.

Doors open at Mezzanine at 7:00 pm, program starts at 7:30 pm. Complimentary tasting provided by Frida Kahlo Tequila at 7:00 pm. Tickets are $8.00 at the door or $5.00 if reserved in advance by emailing info@sf360.org. Must be 21+ to attend.

In the future look for these programs: Sincerely Yours starring Liberace and new chapters of R. Kelly’s unprecedented audiovisual opus Trapped in the Closet.

SF360 Film+Club: Stuntwood/Freedom is presented by the San Francisco Film Society, Mezzanine and Rehab, and is sponsored by SF Weekly, 7x7 and Frida Kahlo Tequila.

The San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival (April 24–May 8, 2008), is a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating film and the moving image.