I recall with vivid clarity the day my pal Nobiru came back from visiting his girlfriend in Rhode Island with a pocketful of handmade stickers bearing the likeness of Andre The Giant; the stickers stated that the Peruvian man-mountain had a posse. Delightedly, we proceeded to plaster them anywhere and everywhere and even though we had no idea who their creator, Shepard Fairey, actually was, we knew we were a part of something counter cultural and possibly illegal. Cool!

This was in 1994, the hey day of the skate-punk-graffiti-street arts culture lovingly portrayed in Beautiful Losers, which screened as a part of Hot Docs in Toronto.

Beautiful Losers is the brain child of directors Aaron Rose and Joshua Leonard. Rose is best known perhaps as the owner and curator of the Alleged Gallery in New York from 1992 - 2002. Rose's gallery began as a skate-punk booze can but soon, due to the DIY creative ethos he and his friends espoused, a loose movement of art stars began to take shape.

Some of the biggest names to emerge from this scene were Fairey, Mike Mills, Geoff McFetridge, Ed Templeton and Harmony Korine, but Alleged spawned a host of creative superstars who have gone on to extend profound influence on contemporary American film, graphics, painting, fashion, advertising and design.

The film features crisp HD interviews and segments with the above mentioned creators and six others; the familiarity of the filmmakers with their subjects makes for touching, familiar feeling segments offering true insight into the artists work, personalities and motivations.

These interviews, combined with a rough and tumble melange of formats ranging from gritty black and white 8mm to shaky skate videos create what the filmmakers quite rightly term "an intimate creative essay."

Held together with original musical compositions from Money Mark, Beautiful Losers never feels like it closes the book on an era; in fact many of the older artists featured are barely pushing 40. Rather, it's a love letter to the birth of many of the trends at the foundation of contemporary pop culture.

And just in case you don't buy this, why not check out the campaign posters that Fairey, of Andre the Giant fame, is now doing for Barack Obama.