Jason Jennings' Push takes on West Coast post-adolescent skate and snowboard culture to the tune of Smashing Pumpkins, Curtis Mayfield and the Beastie Boys. Twenty-three-year-old Jennings also plays protagonist Jaybird, a budding artist who hits the road to seek his future on Lake Tahoe's slopes.

With characters called Wizard, Brains, Jazz, Echo, X and Farmer, Push's cast is filled with the dedicated boarders - skate and snow - Jennings says inspired him to make the film. "I was raised with Hollywood movies about skateboarding and they never depicted it realistically," says Jennings. "You could always tell that somebody a lot older than these kids actually made the movie."

Jason and his brother Troy, Push's producer, had planned to shoot the film no-budget on Hi-8 but say a preliminary investors' offering netted so much enthusiasm they were able to convince two local businessmen to come up with the entire low six-figure budget for a Super-16mm shoot and 35mm transfer. "We tried to get 50 people to invest $2,000 each, and because of the snowboarding edge the response was overwhelming," says Troy. "I called a snowboarding company cold and they committed to $10,000 without seeing anything."

Working with professional extreme-sports cinematographer Bill Gallen, the filmmakers shot 56 days between January and June to capture Lake Tahoe in snow and spring and Las Vegas in between. The arduous shoot often called for lugging equipment through long mountain hikes so Gallen could get snowboard sequences skiing after the cast with a handheld camera. "Down below we got really creative rigging skateboards for dollies," says the director. The Jennings also had to build a simulated snow rig for a flashback to the real freak storm that blanketed Vegas in '79. "Although Push features snowboarding," Troy Jennings cautions, "the drama carries the film. It's not just an MTV-style extreme sports montage."

All rights are available and Push should be completed by the time you read this; look to the film's website at http://www.pushfilms.com/ for breaking updates.

Cast: Jason Jennings, Justin Giarla, Brad Holmes, Shawn Farmer, Justin Taylor, Cessie Pulleyn, Cameron Desart, Iwa Wojcik, Drew Johnson. Crew: Producer, Troy Jennings; Screenwriter/Director, Jason Jennings; Executive Producers, Robert Bigelow, Bob Panaro; Cinematographer, Bill Gallen; Editor, David Finkelstein. Contact: Troy Jennings, Push Films, 6188 S. Sandhill Road, Las Vegas, Nevada 89120. Tel: (702) 433-3373, Fax: (702) 433-5522.

(pi) - Darren Aronofsky
Floating - Meredith Cole
Liar - Josh Pate & Jonas Pate
Little City - Roberto Benabib
Louis and Frank - Alexandre Rockwell
Push - Jason Jennings
Remembering Mario - Val Franco
The Second Wife - Michael Steinberg
Shopping For Fangs - Quentin Lee & Justin Lin
The Sticky Fingers of Time - Hilary Brougher
Whatever - Susan Skoog