Cro­codile Smile

Barbariga / Fort Forno / 24 / 9 / 2022 / Film

Cro­codile Smile by Pieter Retief and Jonath­an Pinkhard doc­u­ments and exposes to the world not just a frag­ment of the under­rep­res­en­ted, under­ap­pre­ci­ated skate scene of Lagos, Niger­ia, but also one par­tic­u­lar, argu­ably crazy D.I.Y. enter­prise that is speak­ing of a uni­ver­sal lan­guage: the one of envir­on­ment­al cre­ativ­ity, and repur­pos­ing of for­got­ten, if not taboo spaces. In this case, we are talk­ing going to the island of Tark­wa Bay (which is under mil­it­ary rule) with a hand­ful of pre-made con­crete ledges, and the fierce and yet so uncer­tain hope of build­ing more once on loc­a­tion, car­ry­ing all the mater­i­als by boat and res­ult­ing in the start of a D.I.Y. spot and community.

The film will take you on a jour­ney through the loc­al steel and wood mar­kets, the pur­chas­ing of the mater­i­als and the trans­port­a­tion by boat to the island of Tark­wa Bay. On the island, the skaters will build a small quarter pipe, spend the night camp­ing and then skate the new D.I.Y. as the sun rises. The film will leave the audi­ence want­ing more. The island des­tin­a­tion should draw you in and the evol­u­tion of the spot should be on your mind.