Rosy von Praunheim Movie Review

“Some describe me as the most liked and some as the most disliked gay director in Germany. And I've done a lot to make that happen.”

Rosa von Praunheim is an almost unknown in Poland (except for film or queer freaks) film director with a huge achievements. He has made more than 140 films — feature length films, short fars, queer musicals, essays, documentaries.

Art was his way of life, besides that he painted, wrote, directed in the theater. For his wallpaper, he took the situation of LGBTQ+ people, the stories of strong, feminine characters, and the life of New York. And besides, he made autobiographical films, where he went back to his roots, looked for beginnings, watched what had changed. Also an important topic was the AIDS epidemic, which he fought as an activist. What distinguishes his work is a specific cinematic language and an eternal desire to discover more and more new plots and tell stories. As part of the retrospective, we will show seven films, starting with the cult film-essay, with the narration of the director It is not the homosexual is perverse, but the situation in which he lives (1971). It is a picture of gay society, the actuality of which can be found in the still unchanged, at least not in Polish society, perverted situation. Maybe with the difference that today instead of cruising in public toilets and parks, we have adventurous relationships on Grindr and in clubs or saunas.

We will also show The City of Lost Souls (1983), a musical adventure by the owner of a Berlin burger joint, who rents rooms to various characters, including a couple of pornographic trapezists who come from America. The camp aesthetic is intertwined here with the need to find your place in the world, your people. In Serdelek (1971), the director tries, in turn, to ridicule, and perhaps also to understand, bourgeois customs and tells about love not for the other half, but for the image of himself with this person. My Mothers (2007) is an autobiographical journey that begins at the moment when a 94-year-old mother announces to her son that she is adopted. A few years later, Rosa von Praunheim filmed a documentary in which she searches for traces of her biological mother. From the documents we will also show Survive in New York (1989), a story about the relationship between the city and three immigrant heroines. How much did they sacrifice to be here? How has the city changed them? The most narrative film Einstein of sex shows the fate of a German sexologist, a pioneer in the fight for the decriminalization of homosexuality: Magnus Hirschfeld. As Rosa himself said about the film: “The Einstein of Sex” is, in my opinion, the most controversial film. Some will probably be disappointed that it tells a story from a real event, with interesting characters and at which you can cry at the end. (...) Maybe my film will make, contrary to the actions of the Nazis, who did everything to erase Hirschfeld's character, that he will become recognizable again.” Another biography is Steadfastness (2015), the story of Andreas Marquardt. It is full of violence that Andreas experienced since he was a child, and also used it on himself and others.