Paranoid Park
USA | 2007 | 85 MINS
from Blake Nelson’s book, adapted and directed by Gus Van Sant
starring Gabe Nevins, Taylor Momsen and Dan Liu
Paranoid Park was written by adult and children’s author Blake Nelson. He felt that it was a darker and simpler plot compared to anything that he had written before. The book and film follow the story of a skateboarding teenager who accidentally kills someone and has to come to terms with his actions and live with the consequences. This was fertile ground for adapting writer and director Van Sant whose previous films My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting and Elephant examined young people living on the fringes of society. Van Sant wrote the draft script in two days and used social networking sites to cast the actors and skateboarders.
A haunting, voluptuously beautiful portrait of a teenage boy... a modestly scaled triumph without a false or wasted moment. The New York Times
Generously sponsored by Revolutions Bikes
FEATURING A POST-FILM DISCUSSION WITH CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH AND YOUNG PEOPLE FROM BRIDPORT’S SKATE PARK THE TRICK FACTORY
Clive is founder and director of Reprieve, a UK based human rights charity that focuses on the direct representation of prisoners facing the death penalty and being held in secret prisons. He has been involved in more than 300 death penalty cases and worked on introducing the rule of law into Guantánamo Bay and other secret prisons.
We’ve got much more serious issues here in Bridport than a little torture in London. I suspect that we’ll put the fear of God into the people who want to take this gem of Bridport away from these young people.
Clive Stafford Smith on The Trick Factory
See also:
Where the Wild Things Are
James Bond, videogame hero
The Bridport Prize International Creative Writing Competition now receives thousands of entries from over 80 countries. 
