Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)
Colleen Grogan, who is one of the Executive Producers, is from Phoenixville, PA. She was on the show on Thursday, February 13!
You can listen to the interview HERE: Colleen Grogan (02:18:53)
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)
The film just won an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short Subject – that’s right, Colleen won an Oscar!
US filmmaker Carol Dysinger (C-R) and director Elena Andreicheva (C-L) pose with the Oscar for Best Short Subject Documentary for “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)” as they attend the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party following the 92nd Oscars at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills on February 9, 2020. (Photo by Jean-Baptiste Lacroix / AFP) (Photo by JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX/AFP via Getty Images)
Watch the trailer:
In Afghanistan, many young girls are not able to participate in sports. Cultural and religious norms, along with other factors such as safety concerns and years of warfare, have resulted in limited athletic and recreational opportunities for women and girls, especially those who come from impoverished neighborhoods. But there is a new generation of Afghan girls who believe they can do anything. Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl) tells the story of young Afghan girls learning to read, write – and skateboard – in Kabul. The film follows a class of girls at Skateistan, a nonprofit that began as a skate school in Kabul in 2007 and grew into a multinational educational initiative. Skateistan focuses on recruiting girls from impoverished neighborhoods to not only teach them to skateboard, but to help educate them so they can join – or return to – the public school system. Over the course of the school year, the girls grow and become empowered through the joy of skateboarding and the warmth and inspiration of the women who teach them. For the girls in our film, the chance to skateboard presents a unique experience – to compete, to play, to learn their strengths, and to gain courage, life skills that will transcend skateboarding and the classroom to help the girls adapt and thrive with the changing opportunities newly available to them.
Listeners and Viewers can stream the movie on AETV.com or on the A&E APP
CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who worked on the A&E IndieFilms documentary short, Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl), for winning tonight at the #Oscars! pic.twitter.com/vX5IGGoZXs
— A&E (@AETV) February 10, 2020
Empowering children through skateboarding and education – this international non-profit organization empowers children through skateboarding and education in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa. If you’d like to learn more or make a donation, go to www.skateistan.org!
