Monday, September 10

Dogtown Accepted at Toronto Film Festival

Press Release

Stacy Peralta's "Dogtown and Z-Boys," the winner of the Audience Award and the Director Award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, has been accepted to the Toronto International Film Festival. The film was written by Stacy Peralta and Craig Stecyk, produced by Agi Orsi and executive produced by Jay Wilson of Vans. It was narrated by Sean Penn. "Dogtown and Z-Boys" will be released in April, 2002 by Sony Pictures Classics.

The high-flying "vert" style of skateboarding is such a defining element of youth culture, it's hard to believe it wasn't invented by a skateboard manufacturer. In fact it was invented on the streets of Dogtown, a section of Santa Monica and Venice "where the debris meets the sea." In the early 1970s, this rundown urban beach neighborhood spawned the Zephyr Skating Team. The Z-Boys took their clunky skateboards onto asphalt-banked school playgrounds and empty swimming pools and learned to "carve" these three-dimensional terrains in new ways, instinctively gravitating to a fluid, surfing-inspired style that was both stylish and improvisational. The Z-Boys caught the mainstream skating world off guard at the Del Mar Nationals in 1975, where they made their first splash. Within a year, the aggressive Dogtown style came to dominate the sport, and its young masters, Jay Adams, Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta, became international teenage superstars. "Dogtown and Z-Boys" is the story of a group of gifted kids who inadvertently inspired an American pop culture phenomenon.

Former Z-boy and Director Stacy Peralta combines interviews with the original Zephyr team members: Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Bob Biniak, Paul Constantineau, Shogo Kubo, Jim Muir, Peggy Oki, Stacy Peralta, Nathan Pratt, Wentzle Ruml and Allen Sarlo, with the stunning photography of Stecyk and Glen E. Friedman.

Stacy Peralta (Director, Co-Writer) is an original Z-Boy and is considered one of the founding fathers of modern skateboarding. At nineteen, Peralta walked away from his skating career and formed the skate company Powell Peralta. With the help of trend-setting graphic artists Craig Stecyk and Vernon Courtland Johnson, Powell Peralta became an industry leader in just five years. Peralta and his company discovered Tony Hawk. They sponsored him for eleven years as the founder and coach of Powell Peralta's Bones Brigade skateboard team. In 1984, Peralta and creative partner Craig Stecyk produced their first skateboard film, "The Bones Brigade Video Show," launching a skate-video revolution that shifted the balance of power in the field away from the traditional magazines and the corporate organizers of competitive events. Many young skaters now routinely bypass competition altogether, choosing video instead.

Peralta has appeared in several skating films, including "Freewheelin'" in 1976. He served as a second unit director on the films "Police Academy 4," "Gleaming the Cube" and "Thrashin.'" As a result of his video work with the Bones Brigade, Peralta worked on Steven Spielberg's "Hook" (1990) as a scene choreographer and skateboard consultant. After leaving Powell Peralta in 1991, he began directing and producing television specials, pilots and series. He recently directed the interview series "Influences" for Bravo.