Trough Stephen Roe’s lens, a heterogeneous crew addresses the contrast of skateboarding from the infinite steppes to forgotten Mongolian towns, and incidentally discovers an urban blooming scene riding the saddle of a galloping Globalization.
Directed, filmed and edited by Stephen Roe
Skateboarders: Joseph Biais, Jerome Campbell, Igor Fardin, Yoshihiro “Deshi” Omoto, Sylvain Tognelli, Phil Zwijsen
Original soundtrack: Joel Curtis, Samuel Jones
The History:
Back in 2004, a phalanx of skateboarders decided to go skate a giant skatepark they had seen a photo of, in the heart of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Once they reached, only to discover that the structure had been razed three weeks prior, the real adventure began. The resulting book (Dirt Ollies) and film (Mongolian Tyres)* depicted the trip—an epic rendition of two worlds colliding, and of a country about to go through a drastic change.
Ten years later, Mongolia has become one the quickest growing countries in the world, thanks to its underground treasures (coal, copper, rare metals, uranium, etc.), both blessing and curses with tales of anarchic growth and profound society changes.
From the dirt roads of 2004 to the construction sites dust of 2014, this decade of (r)evolution fully deserved a new book and a film. We decided to use what we knew, skateboarding, to monitor the transformation from vernacular angle. And so, ten years later, bags were packed again for an heteroclitic crew of skateboarders, photographers, writers, architects. Mongolia, here we went again...
Read more about Out Of Steppe, From Dirt To Dust, Dirt Ollies & Mongolian Tyres.
