Rosa von Praunheim | 1992 | Duitsland | 91' | EN subs

This amazing flick is the recounting of a true story about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. She has an amazing story, and one that puts a spotlight on secret histories that are being lost. Charlotte was a transvestite in Nazi Germany, and afterwards in the former East Germany where she ran a museum that became a hot spot for parties and discussions for the gay community. She had a discreet yet determined way of undermining any regime she lived under, and she was alway persecuted all her life - in Nazi Germany, East Germany and so-called unified Germany after the fall of the wall. This documentary charts her life, using two actresses to perform her earlier life, and she herself is present to wrap things up. What an inspiring story – about fighting for your own spirit against all odds.

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In many circles, the name of Rosa von Praunheim evokes a kind of mythological legend. Since the late 1960s he has been one of the leading figures of independent German cinema and the underground cultural scene, having knocked out over 150 films. He has lived on both sides of the Berlin Wall, and also in New York back in the 1970s. In West Berlin his flamboyant spirit and wild confrontational aesthetics helped create the unique counter-culture that defined that city during its heydays of the seventies and eighties.

Rosa's films center on the lives of outsiders, uncompromising individuals who don't fit any paradigm or social system. Much of his work delves into the Queer world, as in his first international success It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives, which he threw on the screens in 1971. What ensued was nothing short of a cinematic and societal earthquake. Already in this film we see a rigor and brutal honesty that can't be found anywhere in cinema today. Since then he has followed his own artistic vision and created his own trailblazing path of independent filmmaking. A very personal vision exploring both fiction and documentary films, often fusing the two together. His films can switch from biting realism to dreamily surreal sequences.

As a public personality, Rosa stands out for for his colorful antics, but is also respected for his very serious work as an activist in the queer liberation movement. His stances on controversial issues were often unorthodox, but they have influenced LGBTIQ* issues worldwide.