The Blackboard

THIS IS BRIGHTON is a coming-of-age sports documentary about Brighton Zeuner, one of the best female contest skateboarders of her generation. As skateboarding becomes an Olympic sport, this character-driven film reveals the anxiety and pressures of competition, effects of social media, and how a global pandemic upended the promise of a young skater destined to be the best.

This award-winning, thrilling story is about a group of discarded kids who revolutionized skateboarding and shaped the attitude and culture of modern day extreme sports. Featuring old skool skating footage, exclusive interviews and a blistering rock soundtrack, DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS captures the rise of the Zephyr skateboarding team from Venice's Dogtown, a tough "locals only" beach with a legacy of outlaw surfing.

Edward Said's book Orientalism has been profoundly influential in a diverse range of disciplines since its publication in 1978. In this engaging and lavishly illustrated interview he talks about the context within which the book was conceived, its main themes, and how its original thesis relates to the contemporary understanding of "the Orient" as represented in the mass media. "That's the power of the discourse of Orientalism. If you're thinking about people and Islam, and about that part of the world, those are the words you constantly have to use. To think past it, to go beyond it, not to use it, is virtually impossible, because there is no knowledge that isn't codified in this way about that part of the world." -Edward Said

The story of the skaters and developers who came together to create one of the best-selling games of all time, changing the skateboarding scene and pop culture forever.

Preschool to Prison is a compelling examination of how the United States public school system is built and operated like prisons. Zero-tolerance policies are used to justify suspension and arrests that set up a pathway to send children of color and children with special needs from school to prison. Children are being suspended, restrained, dragged, physically manhandled, and subsequently arrested for minor offenses such as throwing candy on a school bus. These personal accounts from people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline give riveting tales about the generational impact on society.

When Volcom was founded in 1991, it was the first company to combine skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding under one brand from its inception. This way of life influenced the anti-establishment style and attitude that defined a generation. The cultural phenomenon was best captured when Volcom released "Alive We Ride" in 1993: a film documenting the raw excitement and spontaneous creativity inherent to the lifestyle. Twenty-one years later, with the release of "True To This", Volcom again captures the energy and artistry of board-riding in its purest forms. Shot all around the world and showcasing iconic athletes, "True To This" is a tribute to the movement that inspired a generation and the people and places that embody that spirit today.

After years of putting out edits, Ryan Garshell dropped a GX1000 full-length this spring. The video picks up where its predecessors left off, with straightforward footage of skaters like Al Davis, Jake Johnson, Yonnie Cruz, and Brian Delatorre, along with clips from Mark Gonzales, among others.

FRUIT OF THE VINE is a super 8mm film that documents the incredible and often dangerous lengths that skateboarders go to in order to ride deserted, empty swimming pools. It is not a historical documentary, but a collection of stories shot in 1999 while Coan and Rick traveled from southern California to Seattle and around the east coast in search of pools to ride. FRUIT OF THE VINE profiles the people who search for, find, break into, and ultimately glean some use out of these pieces of the American suburban wasteland.

A look at the rise and fall of the subversive skateboarding magazine Big Brother, which rose to prominence in the mid-1990s and had a profound effect on the skating subculture with its unfiltered approach.

A child who just loved to skate from the age of eight, Poppy Starr Olsen became the number one female bowl skater in Australia at 14 and went on to take out bronze at the XGames at 17 - the ultimate competition in the world of skateboarding. The same year, skateboarding was announced as an official additional sport category at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Now faced with the opportunity to represent Australia on the world stage Poppy grapples with the transition from skater to athlete and the pressure of competition mounts in a way it has never done before.

Documentarian Jeffrey Morgan set out to the track one woman's search for the truth about her great-great-aunt's 1908 murder. But his film quickly became a fascinating study of racism, revenge and family secrets. In the process of uncovering information about her ancestor's violent death at the hands of an African-American suspect, the woman learns that her family tree might have also produced a few murderers.

Escapist proudly presents Our World, featuring Sean Malto, Mikey Santillan, Shaun McKay, Joseph Lopez, Josh Crane, Josh White, Bryant Doerfler, Keelin Austin, Scotty Laird, Rod Harper, Ernie Torres, Dillon Aguilar, Garrett Olinger, Mike Webb, Ryan Pearce, Max Chilen and Jesse Doan. Edited by Ryan Lovell. Filmed by Tyler Krupski, Dylan Burke and Ryan Lovell in Kansas City, LA, Japan and Puerto Rico.

The Birdhouse team touring all over Australia.

A skateboarding film featuring the Lakai team filmed over the course of 4 years.

Two actresses take us through a series of 'raps' and sketches about what it means to be beautiful and black.

A searing account of what happens when raw talent and extreme personalities collide. In this unflinching, never-before-seen account of drugs and the dark side of professional skateboarding, brothers Tas and Ben Pappas' intense bond and charisma take them from the pinnacle of their sport into a spiraling world of self-destruction.

Explore the origins of skateboarding culture through the lens of the 1965 Palisades Skateboard Team, who reinvented a childhood hobby into a sport, bringing it to the vanguard of popular culture. Features interviews with the team members reflecting on how the sport has changed, 50 years later.

Professional skateboarder Amelia Brodka examines the skateboarding industry's approach to how it markets, promotes and supports women in its sport.

Combining footage unseen since WWI with original scores from the era, this film tells the story of Noble Sissle's incredible journey that spans "The Harlem Hellfighters" of World War I, Broadway Theatre, the Civil Rights movement, and decades of Black cultural development.

Traces the making of UC-Davis professor Darrell Hamamoto's first-ever Asian American porn movie ("Skin on Skin") from planning to production. Hou interviews filmmakers Justin Lin ("Better Luck Tomorrow") and Eric Byler ("Charlotte Sometimes"), professor Elaine Kim and playwright David Henry Hwang to get at whether Asian America truly needs its own "porno practices" as a way of decolonizing the community's collective sexual imaginations and confronting how sexuality and masculinity are treated in the Asian American community.