For almost as long as they’ve been around, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing have been mostly thought of as action sports — and not the sports that come to mind when thinking about the Olympics. But, then again, times change.
This summer in Tokyo, those three sports — skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing — will be official events in the Olympic Games, with medals on the line. How they made it there is the subject of the new documentary World Debut. It examines how the world’s largest sporting bureaucracy came to embrace sports known for their anti-establishment subcultures. But what does this badge of respectability mean to these sports? And what does embracing action sports mean for the Olympics? Filmmakers Cole Sax, Galen Knowles and producer Phil Hessler join us this Friday at 11 a.m. to talk about what happens when radical and rigid worlds find ways to cooperate.
Join us and the Utah Film Center for the premier of World Debut on Wednesday, July 7, at Jordan Park. It's an outdoor event with skate and climbing demos at 7 p.m., a Q&A with the filmmakers, and the screening at 8:30 p.m. Details here.
