On Thursday night, May 23rd, we premiered ‘Hum Bhai & a Single Golab Tear’ (a film by Robert Marohn), in three different cities simultaneously. Although the Giving Room boys are all split up across the nation, we wanted to share our proud work with our friends a night early. Having to coordinate three cities and venues simultaneously was not the smoothest task, as one location was being premiered under a bridge in true DIY fashion. Nevertheless we are super proud of how each city held it down, and came out to support our philanthropic efforts out in India. In case you missed the premiere or haven’t got a clue- you can watch the video, here.
New York, NY - 9:00PM EST
We held the New York premiere at 101 Wilson in Bushwick, NY. Ran by some of the sweetest guys around, 101 is a skateboarding-focused bar that has served as a meeting place and common destination for some post-sesh bev. Since it opened a couple summers ago, the haven has blossomed into a hot commodity- packed to the brim every weekend. That Thursday, we were lucky enough to have a full house, and make everyone shut up for a second to watch our video. After the video we raffled off gear donated by Tiny Hat Skate Life, Quell Skateboards, and Giving Room- of which all proceeds were sent back to our friends in India.
We set up shop with a sheet and a projector at Wild Prairie; a wonderful record and vintage resale shop ran by some great friends. Wild Prairie is no stranger to hosting awesome events with plenty of beers, wines and snacks. About 40-50 homies showed up early to mingle before the premiere and, just after sundown we turned off the lights and cued up the video. The next 18 minutes were filled with laughter, love and tears as people stuck around in attempts to finish all the refreshments and decompress their feelings after the beauty they just watched. All of the limited run Giving Room India shirts were sold with so much more interest from people looking to help our cause further.
The Atlanta premiere was held in true Old Fourth Ward fashion. Up until 2011, the area now known as the Old Fourth Ward skatepark was a DIY built on a couple large slabs of concrete known as The Foundation. Marlon Garcia, longtime 4th Ward local and friend, wanted to pay tribute to the traditional ways of the foundation, so we gathered a generator, a projector and a PA system and teamed up to figure out how to set up our own premiere by the park when the lights when out at 11pm.. To our luck, local law enforcement was not called and over 100 of Atlanta’s finest skaters, friends, and curious passerbys gathered under the nearby bridge for an hour of fun.The Giving Room video was shown in its entirety, followed by Marlon Garcia and Griffin Faulkner’s Oregon Bail video, wrapping everything up with an ode to our fallen pebble beach by Momodou Jallow. This was the first premiere the skatepark has seen and we hope it is not the last!
