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Wheels of Fortune (2001)

Marco stars in skateshow ISH, Erik leads the Friday Night Skate.
Together they race on inline skates through Amsterdam and life.

The director follows them on skates with a camera right through the heart of Amsterdam and the different skate scenes; Marco skates amid dancers as in a dance film; Erik races hectically and with a massive retinue through the city as if he were in an action movie. The wheels under their feet decide the course of their lives; they have transformed their skates into WHEELS OF FORTUNE.

'Stylish Marco' and 'Speedy Erik' are skating friends from the early days, but each other's opposite in skating and lifestyle. Five years ago they formed the hard core of the slalom crew in the Vondelpark.

Marco makes the danceworld streetwise on skates with his own theatre group called ISH. Accompanied by the pumping live beatbox of his friend Thor, he creates moves that only he could make. Explosive and witful, he jumps and slides all the way from street kid in the Vondelpark to a star in the States.

Erik rules the street with the 'Friday Night Skate'. Het catches the eye every week leading thousands of skaters who together form one big skate organism that recapture the city from the cars. In a big trunk he keeps hundreds of wheels that he has worn out in recent years. He pounds the road every day because he wants to become the fastest skater in Holland.

Wheels of Fortune is a production of Selfmade Films in coproduction with NPS. This documentary is made with the support of the Dutch Cultural Media Fund.

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