Skate Kitchen (2018) on Netflix
Camille, 18, lives on Long Island, where her mother makes her promise to quit skating after an injury. She follows the all-girl crew Skate Kitchen to a New York City meetup.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb6.8/105,264 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
An injury leaves Camille's mother insisting she give up skateboarding; Camille is 18 and lives with her on Long Island. She follows the female collective Skate Kitchen on Instagram, and when the group announces a meetup in New York City, she goes. The other girls welcome her at once, and their habits are more rebellious than hers. She tells her mother she is at the library to cover the trips. When she misses her train home, her mother confiscates her skateboard, and the girls help her build a new one. Janay, one of the crew, offers her a place to stay.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Skate Kitchen (2018)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The real New York group Skate Kitchen, whose members play fictionalized versions of themselves in the film, took its name as a tongue-in-cheek reply to YouTube comments on their videos suggesting women "should be in the kitchen" rather than skateboarding.
- Jaden Smith was cast as Devon at the suggestion of Skate Kitchen skater Rachelle Vinberg, after director Crystal Moselle asked the group whether they knew a professional actor who could also skate; Smith and Vinberg had already met on Instagram.
- A scene cut from the film had 60 skateboarders skate from the Lower East Side over the Williamsburg Bridge into Brooklyn, with cameras mounted on a rickshaw and a motorized skateboard while crew followed on roller blades, bicycles and skateboards.
- Some skate park interiors were shot by a handheld camera operator riding a skateboard, while skateboarding on the streets was filmed with a motorized skate deck that could travel up to 20 mph.
- Apart from Jaden Smith and Elizabeth Rodriguez, the principal cast were non-professional actors; Crystal Moselle spent eight months with them developing the script, working with an acting coach, taking improv classes and rehearsing scenes.
- Writer-director Crystal Moselle met group members Nina Moran and Rachelle Vinberg on a subway train in Brooklyn and asked whether they would be interested in collaborating on a film.
- Crystal Moselle's first cut of the film ran almost five hours; she and editor Nico Leunen reduced it to a final cut of 105 minutes.
