12

about 12

Juvenile malice! Inventiveness on the skateboard! Preambles of many trends in current skate culture! These are the qualifications that founded the reputation of a tight group of twelve friends that called themselves the Fret Click – a name which origins are still covered in fog… or smoke?!

Hardcore members Woei, Skelter, Dannes, Silhouet, Rerun, Vrekje, Geoff, Paul, Merijn, Spike, Cois and Phin spent their weekends at self-acclaimed skateboard spots like the RAI in Amsterdam and the Weena in Rotterdam. They falsified train tickets, slept in the streets, and arrived fashionably late on skateboard competitions.

Their legendary status has perpetuated through the Nike SB Zoom Air FC that was dedicated to the Fret Click, an honour that is usually limited to sports heroes like Michael Jordan and skateboard heroes like Mike Carroll (who had his own Vans shoe), and also through this documentary film.

In a fast, humorous and also moving way, debuting director Gyz La Rivière documented the Frets in their prime and current activities. Although persistent in staying young, adult life gets a hold on almost all of them… but heck… growing up is not a crime.

Approx. 50 minutes
Ratio 16:9 / Color
Audio: Dutch
English Subtitles

about Gyz La Rivière

Gyz La Rivière (1976, Rotterdam) is one of the two HuMobisten and also works as a solo artist. He mainly does performances, makes videos and installations. Besides being an artist he does a lot of design projects. Art started playing a role in his life when he started skateboarding in 1987. Skateboarding opened a door to a whole new World for him.

La Rivière’s work is about being restless, bored and saturated. He gets his inspiration out of the enormous daily amounts of images, infographics, logos and icons that reach our perception through our mediatic culture.

Gyz La Rivière arranges time like a visual archivist. By cutting images from their original context and arranging them in a new autonomous one, he becomes the master of his own universe; using the images as schizoid puzzle pieces of hyper realistic media installations.

Gyz La Rivière studied fashion design at the Willem de Kooning Academy. In 2000 he graduated as the first ever student without a collection. In 2002 he was awarded the Rotterdam Maaskant Prize. Recently he published Jan Hart, his fourth book.