Shextreme and Vanguard Film Festivals coming to Arnolfini

Complementing the Vanguard street art exhibition at M Shed (running until the end of October), Vanguard x Vans’ series of free film festivals continues with a weekend of films that begins with a selection encapsulating the women breaking new ground in extreme sports, followed by screenings of classic films and reflections on the birth of the global street art movement.

Shextreme Film Festival runs on October 23. The festival was born in Bristol in 2015 with a clear vision as ‘the first festival celebrating women in extreme sports and adventure’.

In the intervening years, it has gone from strength to strength, attracting sold-out audiences, a successful tour around the French Alps, and the launch of both video community shextreme.tv and Shextreme Alliance, an international network for female adventure filmmakers, photographers and media makers.

Wave Wahines: women and girls of the waves – photo: Yvette Curtis

This year’s event will feature an indoor skate ramp inside the Arnolfini auditorium, and highlights of the day include live performance, discussion, workshops in skateboarding photography and how to ‘create your own deck’, as well as an afternoon screening around the theme of ‘Skate Empowerment’, featuring films celebrating women in skateboarding all around the world.

From Elysium (2021), Lydia Higginson and Dan Higginson’s cinematic exploration of the boundaries between skateboarding and dance, filmed at Campus Skateparks, Bristol, to Carol Dysinger’s Oscar-winning 2019 film, Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl), documenting the meteoric rise of a Kabul skate school, the programme has been curated as a celebration not only of the women and girls who express themselves through skateboarding, but of the filmmaking talent that is capturing them in such mesmeric ways.

Vanguard Film Festival will take place on October 24, and will include the following screenings:

Midday: Wild Style, directed by Charlie Ahearn (1982) – a hugely influential, and semi-fictional piece of work, widely regarded as the first hip hop feature film

3pm: Bombin’ produced by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley (1988) – an exploration of American hip hop’s influence on British street art in the 1980s. Hosted by Martin Jones with a Q&A by Goldie.

5.30pm: Martha: A Picture Story, directed by Selina Miles (2019) – documenting Martha Cooper’s extraordinary work photographing street art in 1970s New York

A panel discussion with Goldie, Charlie Ahearn and Martha Cooper will follow Martha: A Picture Story, to talk about the birth of the global street art movement, and reflect on the influence it has garnered since.

A full rundown of the Shextreme programme is available at www.shextreme-film-festival.com/festival-programme

Main photo: filmmakers Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley in front of 3D mural, Manzoni Gardens, Birmingham 1985. Photo by Martin Jones

Read more: An exploration of how street art in Bristol influenced the world

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