Sony Pictures Classics has picked up North American and English speaking territory rights to Dogtown And Z-Boys, winner of the audience award for best documentary at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Written and directed by Stacey Peralta the $600,000 skateboarding documentary was fully funded by Vans, the athletic shoe-maker most identified with the sport when the craze took off.

Dogtown And Z-Boys chronicles the impact of the Californian Zephyr Team (Z-Boys) on skateboarding in the early 1970s, and the eventual collapse of the team later in the same decade, as the individual team members split off and went their own way. Dogtown was the name given to Santa Monica at the time.

A mixture of vintage still photographs and home movies, Dogtown is intercut with interviews with the Z-Boys as they are today. The film, which also won the Sundance jury prize for best documentary director, is narrated by Sean Penn, whose latest film as director will receive its international premiere in competition in Cannes.

Gary H. Schoenfeld, president and chief executive officer of Vans commented: 'The Sony Classics team has a great track record of connecting a film with an audience, and as evidenced by their success from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, we look forward to a great relationship.'

'We are both thrilled to be in business with Vans. This partnership looks to be very successful, and we look forward to working together for many years to come,' said Sony Pictures Classics' co-presidents Tom Bernard and Michael Barker in a statement.

SPC has released a handful of high-profile documentaries in the past, notably Terry Zwigoff's Crumb and Errol Morris' Fast, Cheap And Out Of Control.