Minding the Gap

Three young men band together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown in Bing Liu's Academy Award-nominated documentary.

Bing Liu's Sundance winner is a coming-of-age saga drawing on over 12 years of footage in his Rust Belt hometown hit hard by decades of recession. In his quest to understand why so many of his peers in the skateboarding community ran away from home when they were younger, Bing follows 23-year-old Zack as he becomes a father and 17-year-old Keire as he gets his first job.

As the story unfolds, Bing is thrust into the middle of Zack's tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend and Keire's inner struggles with racial identity and his deceased father. As we watch the boys grow up before our eyes, we experience the joy, sacrifice and hope in the gap between childhood and adulthood.