Rosa von Praunheim | 1971 | Duitsland | 67' | EN subs

This flick from the early 1970s is so direct and uncompromising that it's shocking. Cinema over the course of years has become so soft and likeable, making the fearlessness of this spirit simply impossible. It is bound to provoke controversy... and it is such a relief because of that. We follow a young man named Daniel who moves to the big city of Berlin and steps into the various gay subculture scenes there. From private bedrooms of the poor, to the country homes of the rich, from the gay bars to the more hardcore meeting places in the city parks. From queens to leather boys to elderly men who hang out at the public toilets hoping to score. As events unfold, they are punctuated with a narration that is a biting critique of what we are watching. Therefore, it works on two levels at the same time... the personal and the sociological.

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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.