Starring Kris Foley and Jarvis Nigelsky. Rated PG.

No one expects skateboarders to be great actors, and in that respect, the nonpros who populate Sk8 Life do not disappoint. The attempt to tell a story in this locally shot, no-budget effort is pretty lame, but the atmospherics still make it fun to watch.

Vancouver skater Kris Foley—game before the camera as himself or someone like him—centres the slim saga of ragtag boarders who gather to bitch, drink beer, and mooch money and more when not skating, talking about skating, or photographing each other, you know, skating.

The only other thing occupying their minds is the imminent demise of the Crash Pad, a small bungalow occupied by Kris and his easygoing girlfriend (Kathy Miller). In the street-level world of these talented but otherwise deprived youngsters, who include in their ranks skate fiends Chad Dickson and Jarvis Nigelsky, the couple’s vibe is almost parental—indeed, the bizarre concept of aging is one of the smarter subtexts here. (Kris’s hairline is definitely a big, if unspoken, issue.) There are halfhearted gestures at raising money to keep a place that’s home to kids who are far from their own for one reason or another. And there’s also a bittersweet, if sketchy, subplot about a 14-year-old with a crush on the group’s resident tomboy.

At the recently wrapped Whistler Film Festival, the shot-on-video effort won John Ainslie the Borsos competition for best cinematography. It was directed by Wyeth Clarkson from a loose script he developed with Elan Mastai, who appears as a somewhat smarmy screenwriter looking to capture the skating lifestyle.

Sk8 Life proves that this business is a tricky one. Almost nothing about the film works on a craft level; in fact, most of the footage looks like washed-out crap. But Clarkson and unsung others have taken that footage and added animation and music to it (think Richard Linklater with no money) in such lively and unpredictable ways that you end up glad to be taken for a ride—even when you know the pavement is hard and never far away.