Jun 18, 2026 2:08pm PT
‘Twilight’ Director Catherine Hardwicke on Her New Movie ‘Street Smart’ About Homeless Venice Youth, Casting Sally Struthers and Why Romantasy Is Booming
Since directing “Twilight” in 2008, Catherine Hardwicke has directed TV projects like “Under the Bridge” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Cabinet of Curiosities” and directed indie films with the likes of Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore. She’s shot from London and Rome to Mexico. But for her latest feature, “Street Smart,” Hardwicke tells the stories of people in her own neighborhood – Venice, California – where she shot “Lords of Dogtown” 21 years ago. Venice has always been a magnet for dreamers and creatives, but in the past few years, tensions have heightened as residents grapple with the effects of the sizable unhoused population in the area.
In this timely and personal film, Hardwicke wanted to capture the lives of skateboarders, artists and musicians who strive to live in freedom while confronting their often-traumatic pasts amid a streetscape sometimes marked by violence, drugs and mental illness. She cast first-time actor Isiah Hilt alongside pros like Yara Shahidi, Isabelle Fuhrmann, Michael Cimino, Sally Struthers and Skeet Ulrich, and wrote the screenplay with Nic Sheff (“Beautiful Boy”). “Street Smart” premieres June 18 at the Bentonville Film Festival in Arkansas and does not yet have a distributor.
