Rare and unique footage from the 1980s GDR youth underground culture mixed with lovingly animated scenes of three boys' friendship (a little graphic novel in itself), the tragic story of a reluctant athlete, a crazy but vulnerable protagonist, a great soundtrack ... it is hard to list all the convincing elements in this authentic documentary of the East Berlin "rollerboarding" scene (as skateboarding was called in the GDR so as to stand out from the capitalist American fad). The deeply sad and very touching film follows Denis aka Panik, born 1970, and his friends as they create a new subculture as a way to live with the "concrete playground" that was their daily GDR. The movement goes viral fast and attracts young people across the country as they start to tour. It is nearly surprising that the Stasi doesn't get to them until just before the fall of the Wall. The state had initially tried to co-opt them into the official sports system, without success. In a way they were practicing for a revolution they didn't see coming, with different means.The film is full of surprises, nothing is black and white. The immense and today nearly unimaginable freedom these kids had (taking off as young teens on skateboard trips to the coast), the Euroskate '88 championship in Prague that brought the East and West scenes together, the 24-hour party life they lived in an apartment on Karl-Marx-Allee ... The audience, whether familiar with the scene or not, feels like taking part in their own high school reunion when the old crew gets together. This sure ain't California, and no-one wants it to be anything other than what it is.
In 2011, Denis is killed in Afghanistan, where he served as a Bundeswehr soldier of the reunited Germany. "Do you really want to live forever .... Forever young..." is the closing song of the film.
by Jutta Brendemuehl, Goethe-Institut Toronto
P.S. The photo shows the bottom ramp of the Berlin TV tower on Alexanderplatz where the crew used to perform. I took it a few hours after seeing the film, on my way back to the hotel (which also appeared in the film, in its previous socialist incarnation as Hotel Stadt Berlin). As I walk across the square now, I keep looking around, expecting Denis to jump off a ledge to do one of his outrageous stunts.
