ON SCREEN
What: Boarders Without Borders documentary première and fundraiser
Where: Logan's Pub
When: Thursday, 9 p.m.
Tickets: $8 at the door
If it were illegal to carry a video camera, a skateboard and a big heart across international borders, Andrew Marchand-Boddy would have an awful time trying to clear customs.
Born and raised in Victoria, the 29-year-old student at Montreal's Concordia University is embarking on a career in filmmaking that he hopes will incorporate his passion for street culture and overseas humanitarian work.
These elements are on prominent display in his new 15-minute short Boarders Without Borders, which won the award for best documentary at this year's Concordia Film Festival.
It depicts life in Pradera, a poor village in rural Colombia that has seen decades of violence as a result of the drug trade and skirmishes between left-wing rebels and government forces.
"It basically follows a 14 year old boy called Juan Sebastián who's from the town," said Marchand-Boddy, who shot the footage in spring 2011. "He talks about his life, farming, going to school, the war and basically how skateboarding has affected his life."
Sharing its name with the charity the filmmaker co-founded in 2009, the film goes on to chronicle the construction of Pradera's first skatepark. Boarders Without Borders raised money to fund the project and also donated 40 skateboards to the community's youth.
Marchand-Boddy said the motivation to start the organization stemmed from his travels to Asia, South America and the Caribbean.
"I always brought my skateboard everywhere I went. We would skate with the little kids we would see and they would be the first ones to come up to us because they'd probably never seen skateboarding before. They loved it."
Those experiences morphed into the idea of using skateboarding as a means to empower underprivileged youth.
"In that area of Colombia, there is a huge drug trade and so many people in this small town, like in many small towns, are alcoholics or are into drugs," he said. "When a kid has a sport that they love, it helps to keep them away from those vices."
Thursday's screening, which will be followed by a hip-hop karaoke fundraiser for Marchand-Boddy's charity, will be the first time the documentary has played for audiences in Victoria.
He said that though viewers can expect the short to function as a stand-alone work, he is planning to return to Colombia this summer to film a feature-length version.
"I'm going back in August to shoot an update with the kids to see how they've progressed in skateboarding and in life."
But before he makes his pilgrimage back to Pradera, Marchand-Boddy will spend a month behind the lens in another exotic locale: the dusty streets of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
The Victoria native will be filming Fonki, a Cambodian Canadian street artist based in Montreal, as he returns to his ancestral home to teach youth how to paint murals of their own.
"It's basically a film about how graffiti or street art is being used to beautify the country."
Though he won't be building any half-pipes in Asia, Marchand-Boddy sees the project as another way in which he can use his hobbies to raise awareness about global issues.
"I grew up with skateboarding and this kind of graffiti culture," he said.
"That's what I know and pretty much what I'm trying to use in my own way to make small changes."
cruf@timescolonist.com
