For a while I've been wondering what PALS thought of this new type of events that keeps popping up, and / or how far they were detached from them, provided that they had even heard about them.
I guess a lot of whether or not you get exposed to them has to do with where you're located geographically. A lot of those initiatives are undertaken by locals from areas that normally don't get too much exposure, so I'd totally understand the concept sounding foreign to people from more popular cities for skateboarding.
In Europe
www.vladimirfilmfestival.com started 8 years ago as an annual DIY event, for the first couple of editions it was strictly grassroots taking place in a small village in Croatia but over the years it's developed into this massive thing being attended by people from the world over. It's attracted the likes of Zach Chamberlin, Richard Hart, Colin Read, Yoan Taillandier, Connor Kammerer, Grey Skate Mag / Free Skate Mag / Solo, the LLSB guys, Will Harmon and a bunch of people from the UK (Dom Henry, Luka Pinto), France, Australia, Singapore, Costa Rica, Germany, Slovenia, the Rios crew from Hungary, and makes for a week packed with photo exhibitions and various activities in addition to the video projections (in spectacular settings) and of course the daily street skateboarding with tons of people exchanging. The program for this year is going to be announced real soon and is supposedly bigger than ever by far.
Since then other initiatives have been popping up such as Sergej Vutuc's Roundabout in Germany (albeit a much smaller thing) or Ivan Skate Fest in Slovenia, some in more luxurious locations also managed to play their cards right and get funding by corporate brands to redirect what still remains a culturally substantial event, ie.
http://www.mimpifilmfest.com.br in Rio De Janeiro - their image is corny because they double up as a surf film festival in order to get bigger sponsors than if it were just a skate thing, but the skateboarding side is interesting.
Here's an interview with the guy who runs the Mimpi festival in Brazil:
http://liveskateboardmedia.com/en/article/mimpi-ruido-premiereHere's an interview with Nikola Racan who runs Vladimir in Croatia (the most authentic and passion-driven one in my opinion):
https://www.greyskatemag.com/2016/10/nikola-racan-interview/Here's a doc I made last year about Vladimir if you want to try and catch the vibe:
http://liveskateboardmedia.com/en/article/vladimir-premiereThe whole point of these events is to try and get people from all over the world to connect, meet up, skate and exchange about their respective cultures, usually it is a lot of creatives who use the opportunity to link up and the skateboarding is super intense because during the day there's so many people skating. The mere possibility of such events happening nowadays I think owes a lot to the Internet (and low-cost flights) so I thought it could be rad to bring them up on this message board and who knows, they could make for good opportunities for PALS meet-ups too.