Skid Row Marathon

robinph

So who is going to watch this film this evening?

https://www.skidrowmarathontickets.co.uk

Skid Row Marathon is the uplifting and inspiring story of an unlikely group of individuals from LA's Skid Row, who receive a second chance at life, all brought on by a simple act of kindness.


Follow the story of High Court Judge, Craig Mitchell as he coaches a long-distance running club from the Midnight Mission on Skid Row. Using the redemptive power of running and the camaraderie of the group, marathon training raises the spirits of Skid Row's inhabitants and gives a sense of purpose to a group of people who are homeless, addicted or coming out of the prison system.

Not really sure what to expect from the film, other than Marathon Talk were getting all very excited over it for the last few months.

robinph

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1qvu3IpoPw

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opus

robinph wrote: »

So who is going to watch this film this evening?

Yup picked up a ticket for the one in Cork given how often it has been plugged on MarathonTalk, mentioned it to a few running friends but they're all going to a local 6m BHAA race instead. Hope I'm not alone in the cinema

bigslice

Heard plenty of it on marathon talk alright and then actually shared a Cable Car outside the London expo with the Judge and chatted with him on it. Very interesting story and he was very attached to it.

Claimed to be Irish American too so told him he’d have to run Dublin in October. He had just run LA, Jerusalem and London was his 3rd marathon of the year.

No screenings near me, so will wait for dvd or Netflix for a watch.

seanin4711

robinph wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1qvu3IpoPw

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looks amazing
life changing stuff

opus

Really enjoyed the film, too bad only ~10 people in the whole cinema. Not quite so taken by the short beforehand which had a collection of people associated with the MarathonTalk podcast eulogising running. Hope it's not heresy to say that as I really like that podcast

robinph

I liked the short beforehand, got in the right frame of mind for the main event. PSH could have done with a beard trim though. Not sure if you guys will have got it as well, but the Big Issue add beforehand I though was well done too with the guy running around London and past the seller.

The film was good although I thought it could have done with showing more of peoples struggles that actually put them there rather than just them chatting about them after the event. But that is just the nature of how they go about filming that kind of on going documentary. Hope that Mylo (?) did manage to get himself back on track but they didn't have anything further to say about him after he got put in a hotel for the night after getting kicked out of the Mission.

Was delighted to see that Ben (with the beard and tattoos) had himself down with a couple of credits at the end as well for being the writer of some of the music score and also he was listed as some audio or music consultant for the film, I forget what title it actually was.

The scary bit is that these were not stupid people. They were some very talented people in various things, that for one reason or another took some wrong turns and all of a sudden found themselves on the bottom with nothing. Thanks to the judge some of them manage to drag themselves back into society.

robinph

In the pre-film short one of the recipients of help from The Running Charity was named on screen as ZamZam - The Running Charity.

For reasons of not confusing people though I guess they decided not to also credit her as being an "Olympian". She was actually the flag bearer at 2012 for Somalia and competed in the 400m, but received death threats due to participating and claimed refugee status. Then became homeless in London and The Running Charity helped her out.

https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/meet-zamzam-farah-the-olympian-who-became-an-asylum-seeker-a3520736.html