Minding the Gap
Bing Liu skateboards behind his friends Zack and Keire through run-down parks, past crumbling facades and abandoned houses. The skateboarder clique has become a kind of substitute family for this group of youths from a rundown district of Rockford in Illinois. Avid filmmaker Bing captures the lives of his friends away from the skate park: Zack's life is turned upside down when his girlfriend Nina suddenly becomes pregnant. The relationship soon begins to crumble and Zack, plagued by self-doubt and frustration, seeks solace in the bottle. Keire, who longs for reconciliation with his father, has not yet found his place in a multicultural society. And for Bing himself, it's time to confront his mother with a dark chapter from his own past.
The lyrical debut work of Bing Liu was created over a period of several years. The filmmaker succeeds in dealing with his friends in an extraordinary and highly emotional way to show the complexity of a biased, "difficult" youth.
- Genre: DOC: Social & Human Interest
- Country, Year: USA, 2018
- Runtime: 98 Min
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: German
- Director: Bing Liu
- Cast: Keire Johnson, Zack Mulligan, Nina Bowgren, Kent Abernathy, Mengyue Bolen, Bing Liu
- Cinematography: Bing Liu
- Editors: Joshua Altman, Bing Liu
- Music: Nathan Halpern, Chris Ruggiero
- Producers: Diane Quon, Bing Liu, Grodon Quinn, Steve James, Betsy Steinberg, Sally Jo Fifer, Justine Nagan, Chris White
- Production Companies: Minding the Gap LLC, Kartemquin Films
- World Sales: Dogwoof
- www.dogwoofsales.com/mindingthegap
