THIS AIN'T CALIFORNIA
Germany 2012 – Director: Marten Persiel – Original language: German – Subtitles: English – Length: 90 min.
"The GDR wasn`t designed for that - the streets were not for playing in," explains a former government functionary. While the state at first regarded skateboarding to be an anti-working class subculture, they later tried to make it respectable. Yet the skaters around Alexanderplatz saw it as something completely different. For them it represented an alternative attitude towards life in the 1980s. The film sets out to investigate the subculture of the Californian pursuit on the other side of the wall and discovers what happened to the clique from back then.
Director, Persiel, who was for many years himself a skater, brings together original material from the scene, Super-8 footage, recent interviews and animations in a sensational kaleidoscope. An exceptional contemporary document, which redefines the documentary film genre. Maren Bornemann
Writer: Marten Persiel, Ira Wedel. Camera: Felix Leiberg. Sound: Sebastian Zidek, Michael Scheuvens, Lukas Lücke, Wladimir Gelwich. Editing: Maxine Goedicke, Toni Froschhammer, Bobby Good. Music: Lars Damm. Production: Wildfremd Production. Producer: Michael Schöbel, Ronald Vietz. Co-Producers: arte, MDR, rbb crowdfunding, medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. International Sales: Colibri Media Distribution: Farbfilm Verleih Berlin
