An independent full length video by Pepa Košťál. A celebration of raw skateboarding from the streets of Prague, Berlin, Chicago, Nicosia, Paris, Taipei, Tokyo and Torino. Featuring Jakub Osten, Jan Pelikan, Jakub Jiruska, Issei Morinaka, Marco Iaria, Steffan Watts, Matze Wieschermann and many more. Animations by Ece Aykol.

Hey Pepa, how about a quick introduction to get things started? Of course. I’m Pepa Košťál, originally from the small town of Žďár nad Sázavou, but currently residing in Prague. By the time the interview comes out, I’ll be 30. I’ve been skating for 20 years and I’ve been filming for about four or five years.

How did filming get into your life? Actually, I’ve always been kinda into it. Even as a kid, I would film with a mini dvd camera (not mini dv,  mini dvd!) with a peephole taped to the camera as a fisheye [remixed here] and I would make some little ghetto edits (laughs). But I would say that I really started filming four or five years ago. Patricio (Valdes) got me into it. He’s a dear friend of mine, originally from Santiago, Chile and just like myself, he’s working as an engineer. He introduced me to filming with the VX and the MK1. He’s my VX guru til this day (laughs)!

As an engineer, do you have the skills to work on/repair our favourite outdated camera? Hell no. I’m a mechanical engineer, anything electronic is unknown territory for me (laughs). I’ll leave that to Patricio. But I’ve made some gadgets for my VX –  I’ve machined a special handle for the tapeless recorder and 3D-printed some custom bayo ring and MK1 covers so that it all fits perfectly my bag (laughs).

How’s your work/skate/film balance going as an engineer? Pretty good, I guess. I work in the development department of a global company and get to travel quite a bit for work. So, whenever the company decides to send me out somewhere, I always pack my board and my VX (laughs). My work’s pretty intense, though. So, I do not really get to skate that much during my working days abroad, but whenever there’s a chance, especially on the weekends, I’ll skip all the typical tourist things to do and just go skate and film with the locals. This way you get to explore completely different parts of the city and you’ll just get the real local experience.

Sounds good. Do you plan things out up front, skating-wise I mean? Normally, before I go, especially if it’s overseas, I try to do my homework up front. I’m always trying to connect with locals from all over the world. And with time, it’s just getting easier and easier… The world is only so big and especially in skating you’ll always find someone somewhere, who you’ve got a friend in common with.  Sometimes it’s just crazy, though… like the way I’ve met Five (Shih), for example. I was about to go on a work trip to Taipei and wrote with an old friend of mine who had moved from Czech to Taiwan. He was down to connect me with some locals, but somehow we didn’t really continue the conversation. Then, shortly I before I would leave off to Taipei, I had to go on another work trip to Paris. As usual, I took my board and my camera with me and during one of my off days, I met this guy at a spot, we talked a bit and it turned out he’s from Taiwan. I told him I was Czech and he told me he had a Czech flat mate back home in Taipei: my old friend Dominik “Leeback” Mudrunka (laughs). So, when I went to Taipei I was welcomed with open arms by Five and the whole Stable TPC crew and had some of the best and wildest sessions over there. Taiwan’s definitely one of my favourite destinations ever!

The Taiwan footage looks great by the way! Where else have you been for the video? Could you give us a little summary of all the missions that went into STILL ON A MISSION? Actually it’s the first big video project that I worked on by myself. Before that, I’ve been making the Bombastik videos together with Patricio, but he moved to Austria. So, for the last two years, I’ve been filming for STILL ON A MISSION during my travels to Taipei, Tokyo, Chicago, Germany, Cyprus, Paris and Italy as well as back home in Prague. There’s full parts by Jakub Jiruska, Jan Pelikan, 43 years old Stalin Plaza OG Jakub Osten and myself as well as a couple of montages from Europe and overseas.

For a video with four full parts by Prague-based skaters, it’s quite surprising to not see more Stalin Plaza footage in there. How’s the current state of the spot? As far as we know, there’s been quite some back and forth about the future of Stalin Plaza in recent years… Stalin Plaza’s here to stay! There was supposed to be a development project for the full place, but we’ve had some petitions going on and eventually, the development project was cancelled. As far as I know, the mayor of this district of Prague seems pretty down with skating, too. They even fixed the missing granite that was used for the three-blocks. I love Stalin Plaza and live only ten minutes away from it. It’s just got the best atmosphere, the sound of the ledges alone… it’s the best place for skating! But when it comes to filming, I do prefer to venture out a bit. Prague and all the towns around here have so much more to offer, so much more to discover! That’s why there’s only five or six clips from Stalin Plaza in the video.

Could you tell us a bit about the look of the video, its visual identity? It almost makes you feel like you’re in an arcade video game… It’s definitely inspired by the Bombastik videos as well as the Sabotage videos. A lot of glitches, a bit of a darker look and feel to it, instrumentals, all that kind of stuff. The video world map is inspired by a rather unknown little Sabotage edit. Ryan Higgins made an arcade style map for this one and I really liked it. I thought it would be a good way to visualise different locations that are displayed in the video. Ryan’s the homie and I wanted to pay homage to his work, so I used his animation as an inspiration. Ece Aykol helped me to bring the animations to life. We’ve also hidden some GPS coordinates for spots as an easter egg in the animations. After the world map was done, we continued to brainstorm and that’s how the globe/gaming menu including all the different parts was born.

Sick, gotta love some nerdy easter eggs in skate video! What’s your plan now that STILL ON A MISSION is done? Off to the next mission? Patricio and I will be joining forces again for another Bombastik video this year. We’re already planning to go to Malmö and Torino for this one and if everything goes well, we’d like to premiere it again at Vladimir Film Festival. It’d be the third Bombastik video to be premiered at Vladimir. Well, and apart from that, just keep skating and filming, I guess.

Thanks for the interview! Any shoutouts? Thanks to everybody involved in the video. Special thanks to Issei Morinaka, Five Shih and the Stable TPC crew, Steffen Watts, Reese Sandstrom, Matze Wieschermann, Marco Iaria, Tommaso Parise and all them Torino homies, Patricio Valdes and Ece Aykol.