"This Ain't California" is a 100-minute documentary from 2012, so this one has its 5th anniversary this year. Do not be fooled by the English title as this one is a German production in the German language. Writer and director of this one we have here is Marten Persiel and it is also his only work as a filmmaker, at least by now. He received some awards attention for it, not just at the German Film Festival, but even in the United States. I personally do not really share the praise though. I believe it is a somewhat interesting reminiscence by the characters involved in here, but I feel as if that's it basically. It is about skateboarders from the GDR and how their approach to this activity was pretty much not really conform with the ideals and basic concepts of the GDR. On a weak note, I thought the people in here were almost all interchangeable really and honestly I think they were too full of themselves at times. One example would be when they talk about GDR citizens watching them and how they see their own unfulfilled desires in these skateboard activities. This is incredibly exaggerated and over the top and there are more moments like these to be honest. The attempts of the filmmaker and the people in it to add relevance to the project did not work out well at all and I had to cringe at times. Apart from that, the film still stays too irrelevant and too personal at times where I would say that this is only a good watch for relatives and friends of the people we see in here. I may be a bit biased as I have never been into skateboarding at all, but I think that these 100 minutes are nothing that will motivate you to buy a skateboard and also it will not really get you curious into life at the GDR if you haven't been curious before watching this one. And if you have, then I feel that it will teach you very little new, if anything at all. I give this one a thumbs-down and I think Persiel's lack of experience clearly shows in here. Then again, the subject as a whole may not have been a great choice to be honest. In any case I am not curious about his future works if there will be any at all that is. Watch something else instead.

I am sorry, but upon seeing this I had the suspicion it couldn't be quite accurate and by later finding out it probably is a complete fabrication, scripted and acted out, I was feeling played with and lied to. Who likes that? I would think not a great deal of people. A simple information at the beginning that the story and the material are mostly fictitious would have prepared the viewer that he was watching something of an idealized, wanna be past, that did not happen as presented at all.I hope those filmmakers will not continue in making "documentaries" but use their imagination more accordingly in different settings. Better luck next time. For a mockumentary it just isn't funny or interesting enough.

THIS AIN'T California tells a great story, of the growth and development of the nascent skateboarding culture in East Germany during the Eighties. Told through the biography of one of the leading protagonists in the movement, Dirk (aka Panik), this documentary tells of how a group of friends came together in a local housing estate, and developed their own approach to skateboarding - not necessarily in opposition to the West, but independently of it. Eventually the group came into contact with colleagues from West Germany, as well as other skateboarders from Europe and the United States; and they discovered that the community was far greater than they had anticipated. The group were not necessarily rebelling against communist rule; rather they were creating an alternative world in which personal fulfillment mattered more than collective good. This message is a powerful one; but devalued somewhat by the fact that much of the footage - which claims to be authentic from the Eighties - has been mocked up for the film. Moreover the narrative thrust becomes a little lost as the film unfolds; perhaps there ought to have been less slo-mo shots of the skateboarders in action and more emphasis on the multiple narrators - the group (now middle aged) looking back on their exploits.

I grew up in the former GDR (East Germany) and I am about the same age as the skaters in the movie.There have been quite a few movies about that time. None got it right in my opinion. Some portrait it as a dull place - some exaggerated it as a comedy. So, this movie about the Skater scene in East Germany is very close to how life was at the time (as far as I can trust my memories). It is a movie about young people that share the passion for skateboarding. They have to live with the boundaries of the GDR.Also interesting, it tells a clear story but on the other hand it is a documentary as well.Besides, I also liked how the movie is made. The pictures, the music, the cuts, ... it simply fits.