Wed November 12, 2014
Films at Goethe: This Ain´t California
SEE EVENT DETAILS
at Goethe-Institut San Francisco
(see times)
25 Years after the Berlin Wall:
This Ain't California
Director Marten Persiel will be present.
Content:
Commercial filmmaker and lifelong skater Marten Persiel’s documentary is a high intensity bacchanal of Super 8 flashbacks, ultra-short jeans shorts, grainy TV advertisements, naked girls and political upheaval. Colonizing the then-empty concrete expanse of the Alexanderplatz with board in hand, East German skaters were an immediate threat to the rigid GDR regime, which responded to the sport’s populist support by unsuccessfully trying to institutionalize it, creating “skating schools” and an international competitive team. Crosscutting amazing footage of the halcyon days of “roller boarding” with timely news footage to blistering 1980s German punk.
This Ain’t California detonates the explosive story of one of the first skateboard crews behind the Berlin Wall. —Jackson Scarlett
Filmmaker, author and commercial director Marten Persiel is a nomad and somewhat of an oddball. After a 12 year long odyssey through England, Spain, Brazil and the Philippines, he returned to his birthplace Berlin in 2008, bringing home four documentaries, countless award-winning commercials and an excellent network of filmmakers and producers all around the world. Persiel’s trademarks are his close bonds with his protagonists and his very own, off-key aesthetics. He always searches for unusual, less restrictive narrative formats to tell his stories. This Ain’t California, a project particularly dear to Persiel, will mark a climax in this quest thus far. —Wildfremd Production
Directed by: Marten Persiel Germany, 96 min., 2012
German with English subtitles
Suggested donation $5
show less
This Ain't California
Director Marten Persiel will be present.
Content:
Commercial filmmaker and lifelong skater Marten Persiel’s documentary is a high intensity bacchanal of Super 8 flashbacks, ultra-short jeans shorts, grainy TV advertisements, naked girls and political upheaval. Colonizing the then-empty concrete expanse of the Alexanderplatz with board in hand, East German skaters were an immediate threat to the rigid GDR regime, which responded to the sport’s populist support by unsuccessfully trying to institutionalize it, creating “skating schools” and an international competitive team. Crosscutting amazing footage of the halcyon days of “roller boarding” with timely news footage to blistering 1980s German punk.
This Ain’t California detonates the explosive story of one of the first skateboard crews behind the Berlin Wall. —Jackson Scarlett
Filmmaker, author and commercial director Marten Persiel is a nomad and somewhat of an oddball. After a 12 year long odyssey through England, Spain, Brazil and the Philippines, he returned to his birthplace Berlin in 2008, bringing home four documentaries, countless award-winning commercials and an excellent network of filmmakers and producers all around the world. Persiel’s trademarks are his close bonds with his protagonists and his very own, off-key aesthetics. He always searches for unusual, less restrictive narrative formats to tell his stories. This Ain’t California, a project particularly dear to Persiel, will mark a climax in this quest thus far. —Wildfremd Production
Directed by: Marten Persiel Germany, 96 min., 2012
German with English subtitles
Suggested donation $5
25 Years after the Berlin Wall:
This Ain't California
Director Marten Persiel will be present.
Content:
Commercial filmmaker and lifelong skater Marten Persiel’s documentary is a high intensity bacchanal of Super 8 flashbacks, ultra-short jeans shorts, grainy TV advertisements, naked girls and political upheaval. Colonizing the then-empty concrete expanse of the Alexanderplatz with board in hand, East German skaters were an immediate threat to the rigid GDR regime, which responded to the sport’s populist support by unsuccessfully trying to institutionalize it, creating “skating schools” and an international competitive team. Crosscutting amazing footage of the halcyon days of “roller boarding” with timely news footage to blistering 1980s German punk.
This Ain’t California detonates the explosive story of one of the first skateboard crews behind the Berlin Wall. —Jackson Scarlett
Filmmaker, author and commercial director Marten Persiel is a nomad and somewhat of an oddball. After a 12 year long odyssey through England, Spain, Brazil and the Philippines, he returned to his birthplace Berlin in 2008, bringing home four documentaries, countless award-winning commercials and an excellent network of filmmakers and producers all around the world. Persiel’s trademarks are his close bonds with his protagonists and his very own, off-key aesthetics. He always searches for unusual, less restrictive narrative formats to tell his stories. This Ain’t California, a project particularly dear to Persiel, will mark a climax in this quest thus far. —Wildfremd Production
Directed by: Marten Persiel Germany, 96 min., 2012
German with English subtitles
Suggested donation $5
read more
This Ain't California
Director Marten Persiel will be present.
Content:
Commercial filmmaker and lifelong skater Marten Persiel’s documentary is a high intensity bacchanal of Super 8 flashbacks, ultra-short jeans shorts, grainy TV advertisements, naked girls and political upheaval. Colonizing the then-empty concrete expanse of the Alexanderplatz with board in hand, East German skaters were an immediate threat to the rigid GDR regime, which responded to the sport’s populist support by unsuccessfully trying to institutionalize it, creating “skating schools” and an international competitive team. Crosscutting amazing footage of the halcyon days of “roller boarding” with timely news footage to blistering 1980s German punk.
This Ain’t California detonates the explosive story of one of the first skateboard crews behind the Berlin Wall. —Jackson Scarlett
Filmmaker, author and commercial director Marten Persiel is a nomad and somewhat of an oddball. After a 12 year long odyssey through England, Spain, Brazil and the Philippines, he returned to his birthplace Berlin in 2008, bringing home four documentaries, countless award-winning commercials and an excellent network of filmmakers and producers all around the world. Persiel’s trademarks are his close bonds with his protagonists and his very own, off-key aesthetics. He always searches for unusual, less restrictive narrative formats to tell his stories. This Ain’t California, a project particularly dear to Persiel, will mark a climax in this quest thus far. —Wildfremd Production
Directed by: Marten Persiel Germany, 96 min., 2012
German with English subtitles
Suggested donation $5
show less
Date/Times:
Goethe-Institut San Francisco
530 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA CA 94108
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