of her own. Tracy's single mother Melanie, played by Holly Hunter, has tried to be a friend to her daughter and does not know how to deal with her changes. With divorced parents Tracy does not interact with her father as much, thus this serves as a way for her to feel anger towards both parents, impacting their parent-child relationship.The film features female friendship and the difficulties of adolescence. These friendships are viewed between Evie and Tracy as well as Tracy and Melanie. These eventually became recurring themes in Hardwicke's work. The film received critical acclaim and praise for its stars. Holly Hunter was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Thirteen earned Hardwicke the directing award at Sundance in 2003. Lords of Dogtown (2005) She went on to direct this fictionalized account of skateboarding culture. The film is based on the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys by Stacy Peralta, whom Hardwicke had worked with. As she lived in Venice Beach and knew most of the Z- Boys well from surfing, Hardwicke drew on personal experience in directing the film. "I surf at the same break they surf at, and I know that world, explains the filmmaker." Based on a true story, Lords of Dogtown follows the young Peralta, Tony Alva, and Jay Adams as they revolutionize the world of skateboarding. As California encounters a drought the 70s, residents began to empty out their pools. This led to a group of surfers in the Dogtown Area of Santa Monica to create a new sport, skateboarding. Board designer Skip Englblom, soon decides to add a skate team known as the Z-boys to his already well-known surf team. Taking advantage of the drought, the boys began to practice this new sport in the empty swimming pools. After the team begins to reach success like winning major contests, fame follows and soon the Z-boys start to appear in many magazines. Through this fame, the Z-boys (Stacy, Jay, and Tony) start to get noticed by well-known skateboarding companies in hopes to take the boys away from Skip. As the boys accept major career offers, one by one they leave the team, Stacy being the last to leave. Stacy, Jay and Tony become celebrities and rivals as they compete against each other in various competitions. Ultimately they skateboard for profit, abandoning the passion which they began with. After the pier that the boys used