31/08/2026
You may want to visit our sister cinema on Tuesday.
A bit more info on the movie than usual. The film premiered at the Berlinale in the summer of 1971.
Until just two years before that, the risk of ending up in prison for an openly gay relationship or for gay s*x had been very real. With this context in mind, it becomes clear why many audience members at the premiere—held as part of the International Forum of New Cinema at the *Atelier am Zoo*—entered the auditorium in the dark only after the film had started, and why the call to live openly and politically as a gay man provoked more than just the heteros*xual public.
Rosa von Praunheim had sold the screenplay for this film to the broadcaster WDR as a love story. Even though the final result was vastly different, the station proved broad-minded enough to air the film on television—an institution in its own right back then—in January 1972. Two years later, the film was broadcast on ARD, though Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) refused to show it.
Meanwhile, Rosa von Praunheim, co-author and academic advisor Martin Dannecker, Manfred Salzgeber (both an actor in the film and the curator who brought the film into the Berlinale Forum Section), narrator Martin Eschke even, and many others were on a cinema tour destined to change the country. In many locations, the screenings and subsequent discussions acted as a catalyst for the founding of libertarian gay groups. Fortunately, the era was defined not only by the grim shadow of Paragraph 175 but also by the immense, liberating power of the '68 movement.
Watching the film remains a great experience today. It continues to be challenging & entertaining and is unique in its form. Naturally, our screening of the film is also a tribute to Rosa von Praunheim. For us, the film exemplifies his energy and his courage in tackling issues ahead of their time—as well as his fearlessness, a quality we could certainly use a good dose of today, as the AfD gears up to win parliamentary majorities.
See you at the movies.