A few years ago, Dazed teamed up with Diesel to create the New Voices campaign, which set out to find emerging filmmakers. The collaboration produced three films that received funding because they demonstrated how individuals can make an impact on society through opposition to social pressures. The first of three short documentaries focusing on 'micro cultures' around the world is Skateistan: To Live and Skate in Kabul. Directed by Orlando von Einsiedel, it is the result of this collaboration and these two veritable youth culture icons. Skateistan is not just the title of the film, it is also a charitable foundation and is Afghanistan’s—and the world’s—first co-educational skateboarding school. The school engages growing numbers of urban and internally-displaced youth in Afghanistan through skateboarding, and provides them with new opportunities in cross-cultural interaction, education, and personal empowerment. Students come from all of Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. They not only develop skills in skateboarding and skateboarding instruction, but also healthy habits, civic responsibility, information technology, the arts, and languages. The students themselves decide what they want to learn—Skateistan connects them with teachers who will enable them to develop the skills that they consider important. Since Skateistan has been active in Kabul, they’ve seen that Afghan youth of all ethnicities, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds love to skateboard. Skateistan brings them together, equipping young men and women with the skills to lead their communities toward social change and development. The second film in the series is titled The Boys from Ponta Preta. Set on the Cape Verde islands off the western coast of Africa, this short film shows how three young men struggling with the country’s limited opportunities took the tourists’ sport of kitesurfing and made it their own – with one even becoming world champion. Titik, Mitu and Djo explain how they spent their early days skipping school at the beach and learning from the global surf community any way that they could. Now they have set up a surf school that teaches tourists and offers hope to others who are stuck in the island’s slums. The third and final film is Cult Youth, an insider’s view of Beijing’s underground comic art scene which follows five members of the comic group of the same name. Combining film with animation, the documentary depicts the lives, works and personalities of these struggling and engaging artists. Set against the background of the oppressive publishing industry in China, Cult Youth celebrates the benefits of shared creativity.
