This Ain’t California

Opening in New York today, Marten Persiel’s hybrid “documentary” is a killer ride through 1980’s East Berlin. It tells the story of a group of young skateboarders who reunite to tell old tales about thrashing beyond the Iron Curtain. While the film uses real archival footage and authentic photographs, it is mostly fiction. With that being said, the milieu is real and there was a thriving, energetic punk and skateboard scene that somehow evolved right under the nose of Communism and far from the sandy beaches of Southern California.