Directed by:
Marten PersielVOD (1)
Plots(1)
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. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)
(more)Cast
Erich Honecker
German Empire
Best movies:
Goodbye Lenin! (2003)
Friendship! (2010)
Bill Clinton
USA
Best movies:
Contact (1997) - a.f.
Richard Jewell (2019) - a.f.
Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) - a.f.
Žaneta Fuchsová
Czechoslovakia
Best movies:
Počítání oveček (1981) (TV movie)
Lucy, Terror of the Street (1983)
The Octopuses from the Second Floor (1986)
Helmut Kohl
German Empire
Best movies:
Goodbye Lenin! (2003)
Die Ermittler: Nur für den Dienstgebrauch (2016) (TV movie)
Anneke Schwabe
West Germany
Best movies:
Trau' niemals deinem Schwiegersohn! (2006) (TV movie)
David Nathan
West Germany