Daniel Cross
2001
Internationally acclaimed director Daniel Cross (The Street: a film with the homeless) presents a gutter-level view of a squeegee punk living on the streets of Toronto and Montreal. SPIT: Squeegee Punks in Traffic fol- lows Roach, a 17-year-old ex-junkie, through the conservative hell unleashed by the Common-Sense Revolution. Cross gives Roach a camera (the RoachCAM) to document his life. Over the next 3 years, we see Roach make a journey from street punk to aspiring filmmaker. The film documents Roach while he slowly sta- balizes his life, and develops a politicized style of filmmaking. S.P.I.T. is a punk-verité feature that changes all the rules. SPIT: Squeegee Punks in Traffic smashes the windshield between US and THEM. Roach's camera acts as the hammer: hard, forceful, direct, impacting with the force of an actual life. Daniel Cross' camera docu- ments the impact: recording the reflections of individual lives, mir- rored upon the shards of flying glass. These kids refuse to obey, assimilate or conform to societal values. Their beliefs and realities are scarred into their flesh in the forms of piercings, tattoos and bruised veins. S.P.I.T. is a harsh, unflinching film following Roach’s odyssey through the battles of his hardcore generation.
CREDITS
❛ "This rocks with the urgency of youth and wounded anger of the wrongfully accused" ❜
— Montreal Gazette
❛ “A very real, very thourough - even masterful - portrait of the life of a street punk named Roach” ❜
— I a n Brown, TVOntario The View From Here
❛ “You gotta see this film” ❜
— Vicki Gabereau, The Vicki Gabereau Show
❛ “Roach is a natural to present the case of the maligned street people who make a dollar dodging traffic and the law” ❜
— The Vancouver Sun
❛ “Cross brought great sensitivity and intelligence to his previous work on the underprivileged, in such films as Danny Boy and The Street. Again, here, he has proven a vital advocate for the disenfranchised.” ❜
— Montreal Mirror
❛ “S.P.I.T. will actually alter the way you look at those rag-bag kids who approach your car with dripping wiper in hand.” ❜
— The Georgia Straight
❛ “...as intense and chaotic as life on the streets itself...SPIT achieves a rare feat by neither romanticizing nor demonizing life as a squeegee punk.” ❜
— Lansing State Journal