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Visions du Réel International Film Festival Nyon 4–13.4.2025
Film still of the film Skinhead Attitude, directed by Daniel Schweizer, Visions du Réel 2012

Skinhead Attitude

Daniel Schweizer
Switzerland | 2002 | 90 min
Languages : English, French
Subtitles : French, English

The skinhead movement emerged from the love of Jamaican ska music. Today the term has largely been taken over by right-wing extremists. A traditional skingirl accompanies the director on a cinematic journey through Europe and America on the trail of the “divided brothers”, but the latter will visit the neo-Nazis alone. Skinhead Attitude is the fascinating portrait of a divided movement.
“It's impossible to be a skinhead and a racist at the same time”, said the singer of a ska band, “because skinheads wouldn’t even exist without Jamaica”. The skinhead movement emerged from the love of Jamaican ska music, but meanwhile the term has largely been taken over by right-wing extremists – to the great annoyance of traditional skinheads.

Together with skingirl Karole, Daniel Schweizer undertakes an intercontinental journey to discover what is behind a lifestyle that has experienced a profound division. A couple of English boys in the punk scene had used Nazi symbols as an efficient means of rebelling against their parents, and major bands foolishly turned this provocation into a fascist programme.

Friendliness characterizes Karole’s experiences with representatives of the ska scene in and around record shops and concert venues. Yet she will not be travelling with David Schweizer to Sweden or the American South, where Skinhead Attitude increasingly encounters fascist groups. Meanwhile, radical antifascists do not trust the filmmaker’s motives and refuse to talk to him. Skinhead Attitude is the fascinating portrait of a divided movement.

Jenny Billeter (Translation: BMP Translations)

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