My Playground

To some people, a building is just a place to work or live in; to others it's part of a stunt track. In this masterful documentary, director Kaspar Astrup Schröder follows the Danish free runners from Team JiYo. For these boys and one girl from Copenhagen, the city is one huge playground, as they take spectacular leaps from roofs, roll over concrete and "fly" from gate to post. The free runners see their antics as a mind game: push the boundaries in your own mind and challenge any obstacle the city presents. And it just so happens that the renowned architect Bjarke Ingels from BIG Architects has created buildings in Copenhagen with countless variations in height that perfectly suit their needs. With mutual admiration, the free runners and Ingels follow each other's work and contemplate the function of architecture and urban planning and the liberating power of free running. The architect even lets them loose on unfinished buildings to find out whether he could improve the functionality of his designs. With jaunts to Japan, China and the United States, My Playground explores the global influence of the sport on urban space. The spectacular footage produced ensures that free running is almost as liberating for the viewer as for the practitioner. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)