Documentary Films - Competition 2012 / This Ain't California / Germany 2011
A wittily edited movie that makes use of black-and-white animation, a lighthearted retro-soundtrack, and countless archive amateur shots as it takes a closer look at the inception of the skateboarding subculture of 1980s East Berlin.
It wasn’t only in sunny California that young people became enchanted with skateboarding. As Marten Persiel’s movie demonstrates, at the beginning of the 1980s a group of skate enthusiasts came together in the GDR: for them, riding "wheel-boards” was more than just nipping out for a bit of fun. Skateboarding became the ideal means of livening up the overbearing drudgery of life under a totalitarian regime. Using black-and-white animation, a lighthearted retro-soundtrack, and countless archive amateur shots, the moviemakers take a closer look at the inception of the skateboarding subculture in East Berlin. The sudden death of one of the first East German skateboarders, Denis Paraceck, provided the impulse for a group of friends to get together to fondly reminisce about a time when skateboarding was, more than anything, a symbol of freedom and mutual friendship. Mercifully, this wittily edited movie avoids all those romanticizing clichés put to such plentiful use elsewhere for purposes of "ostalgia” – nostalgia for East Germany.
90 min / Color, HD CAM
Director Marten Persiel
/ Screenplay Ira Wedel, Marten Persiel
/ Dir. of Photography Felix Leihberg
/ Music Lars Damm
/ Editor Maxine Gödecke, Toni Froschhammer, Bobby Good
/ Producer Michael Schöbel, Ronald Vietz
/ Production Wildfremd production Gmbh Berlin
/ Contact WIDE HOUSE
www: www.thisaintcalifornia.com
Marten Persiel (b. 1974, Berlin) worked at HFK Hamburg in 1995-96 as an assistant editor, after which (1997-98) he studied mixed media arts at Portsmouth University. In 1998–2001 he studied direction at London’s University of Westminster. He has created numerous commercials and music videos, as well as several documentaries, including Siyempre Amigos (2006), 14000 Finestres (2008), La Chureca (2009), and We Are Surfers (2010).
WIDE HOUSE
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France
Phone: +33 153 950 464
E-mail: [email protected]
Michael Schöbel
Producer, Producer
Marten Persiel
Film Director
Ronald Vietz
Producer
Dirk Reiher
Film Crew
Felix Leiberg
Director of Photography
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