With a camera in one hand and a skateboard in the other, filmmaker Adam Abada cruised from Pasadena to Santa Monica to uncover the relationship between identity and mobility in Los Angeles. In a city where public transport is avoided like the plague and any evidence of walking is met with incredulity, the car has become king. 

“When I moved to Los Angeles from New York the way I interacted with my skateboard and the world around me changed drastically,” says Adaba. “The reliance on a car in a metropolis like Los Angeles started affecting how I saw myself and my freedom.” 

Stopping off at various skateparks along the Los Angeles stretch of the historic Route 66 highway, Abada captures the feelings and philosophical musings of various skaters and bikers concerning the built world and transportation.

“The legacy of Route 66 is that of an automotive society,” says the director. “I wanted to see how that affected the lives of a few citizens of Los Angeles,” says the director. 

By choosing a lifestyle that eschews the use of cars, the characters profiled in Portraits of Route 66 are seen as counter-cultural radicals. “People's identities are closely related to how mobile they are,” says Abada. “It's this tension between the built world, transportation, and one's sense of self that inspired me to try and gain a little bit more understanding about it.”