Rosa von Praunheim

Von Praunheim was born as Holger Radtke in Riga (now Latvia) Central Prison during the German occupation of Latvia in World War II. His biological mother died in 1946 at the psychiatric hospital in Berlin Wittenauer Heilstätten. After his birth, he was given up for adoption. He only knew these facts when his adoptive mother, Gertrud Mischwitzky, told him in 2000. He discovered the fate of his biological mother in 2006 after a lengthy investigation. He documented his quest in the film Two Mothers (2007).

He received the name Holger Mitschwitzky and spent his early years in East Berlin. In 1953, he escaped from East Germany with his family to West Germany, first to the Rhineland, moving later to Frankfurt am Main. After Praunheim left the pre-university high school in Frankfurt (Gymnasium), he studied at the Werkkunstschule in Offenbach. He then transferred to the Berlin University of the Arts where he studied fine arts but did not graduate. He initially worked as a painter, but eventually opted for a career in filmmaking.

In the mid-1960s he assumed the stage name "Rosa von Praunheim". In the late 1960s, he began experimenting in film and creative writing. He made his debut associated with Werner Schroeter with experimental and short movies, like Sisters of the Revolutions (1968) and Samuel Beckett (1969), with which he quickly became famous. His film Macbeth - Opera by Rosa von Praunheim was shown at the world famous art exhibition documenta V. Von Praunheim married the actress Carla Aulaulu in 1969. The marriage ended two years later in divorce. During this same period, he also collaborated with Elfi Mikesch in a number of film projects. Rainer Werner Fassbinder staged the play Dedicated to Rosa von Praunheim (1969) for von Praunheim.[4]

Von Praunheim's first big feature film was produced in 1970: Die Bettwurst (The Bolsters), a parody of bourgeois marriage. It became a cult movie, which had a sequel in 1973 (Berliner Bettwurst). In 1971 he also caused a stir with his film It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives which led to several gay rights groups being founded and was the beginning of the modern lesbian and gay liberation movement in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The film made Rosa von Praunheim the leading figure of the modern lesbian and gay movement in Germany. It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives affected homosexuals in the USA and many other countries, too.[5] Some artists have referred to the film, for example Bruce LaBruce with the short film collection It Is Not the Pornographer That Is Perverse... (2018).[6]

A prolific and controversial filmmaker, von Praunheim has centered his directorial efforts in documentaries featuring gay-related themes. In the early 1970s he lived for some time in the United States where he made a series of documentaries about the post-Stonewall American gay scene. In Army of Lovers or Revolt of the Perverts (1972–1976) he took on the American gay and lesbian movement from the 1950s to 1976.[7] He was also interested in the underground theater in New York City, which was the focus of some of his films of this period including Underground and Emigrants (1975). In 1979 Praunheim obtained a German Film Award for Tally Brown, New York, a documentary about the singer and actress Tally Brown.[8] In the USA von Praunheim worked with camera people like Jeff Preiss, Mike Kuchar and Juliana Wang.[9]

Back in Berlin, he made feature films such as Red Love (1980),[10] Our Corpses Are Still Alive (1981), and City of Lost Souls (1983) with Jayne County and Angie Stardust. These films were shown in film festivals worldwide. His feature film Horror vacui won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for best experimental film in 1985. Anita: Dances of Vice (1988) the life story of a scandalous nude dancer in Berlin in the 1920s, earned international attention.[11] The film was shown, for example, at the New York Film Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival.[12]

With the eruption of the AIDS epidemic, von Praunheim worked in a tetralogy of AIDS-themed documentaries. A Virus Knows No Morals (1985) was one of the first feature films about AIDS. The documentaries Positive and Silence = Death, both shot in 1989, deal with aspects of AIDS activism in New York. Fire Under Your Ass (1990) focuses on AIDS in Berlin.[13] For the so-called AIDS trilogy, von Praunheim was awarded the LGBTIQ-Film-Prize of the Berlin International Film Festival.[14] Von Praunheim had more than 20 films at the Berlin International Film Festival, making it the record holder.

In Germany, Rosa was very vocal in his efforts to educate people about the danger of AIDS and the necessity of practicing safer sex. These efforts alienated many gays who came to consider him a moralistic panic-mongerer. He would remain a highly controversial figure in his native country. On 10 December 1991, von Praunheim created a scandal in Germany when he outed, among others, the anchorman Alfred Biolek and the comedian Hape Kerkeling in the TV show Explosiv - Der heiße Stuhl as gay. After the show several celebrities had their coming out.

In the early 1990s, von Praunheim developed the first queer TV format in Germany, but continued his film work at the same time. His film Life is like a cucumber with Lotti Huber was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival (1991).[15] He was honored with two FIPRESCI Awards for his films I Am My Own Woman (1992) and Neurosia (1995).[16]

Von Praunheim's film Transexual Menace (1996) was one of the first progressive films about transgender people and premiered at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco and was also shown at the Outfest in Los Angeles.[17] In 1999, he made Geisendörfer Medienpreis for Wunderbares Wrodow, a documentary about the people in and around a German village and its castle. Von Praunheim's film The Einstein of Sex (1999) about Magnus Hirschfeld premiered at the Locarno Festival and was nominated for the Golden Leopard.[18] His film Can I be your Bratwurst, please? (1999) with Jeff Stryker and Vaginal Davis has been shown at over 200 film festivals around the world, for example at the Cannes Film Festival (2000). Moving Pictures Magazine chose the film as best title in Cannes.[19] Von Praunheim's film Cows knocked up by fog (2002) premiered at the Venice Film Festival.[20]

From 1999 to 2006 von Praunheim was professor of directing at the Film University of Babelsberg. Von Praunheim has also taught at various film and art schools, for example at the San Francisco Art Institute. Abel Ferrara was one of his students there. The filmmakers Tom Tykwer, Chris Kraus, Axel Ranisch, Robert Thalheim and Julia von Heinz, all of Rosa von Praunheim's former students, shot the film Pink Children (2012) about their mentor von Praunheim.[21]

In 2008, his film Two Mothers was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival and was nominated for the Jury-Award. At the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival, he was awarded the Berlinale Camera as one of the most important representatives of German cinema.[22][23] Von Praunheim also received the Berlinale Special Teddy Award for his outstanding contributions to queer cinema.[24] In 2012, he was awarded the Grimme-Preis for his documentary Rent Boys. In 2015, he received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2020, he was awarded the Max Ophüls honorary award for his life's work.[25] Von Praunheim also received the honorary award from the Pink Apple Film Festival.[26]

On the occasion of his 70th birthday (2012), von Praunheim made 70 short and medium-length films for the German television station RBB under the title ROSAS WORLD. Never before has a documentary filmmaker been given so much airtime on German television. ROSAS WORLD has also been shown at film festivals, for example at the Vienna International Film Festival.[27]

Von Praunheim has been painting since his early youth and occasionally exhibits in galleries and museums, for example in the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art.[28][29] He curated exhibitions himself, for example in the Lincoln Center, and was director of the film and video arts department at the Academy of Arts (2015 - 2018).

Von Praunheim had many large and well-regarded film screenings and premieres in the USA, for example in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, in The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, in the Wheeler Hall of the University of California, Berkeley and at film festivals across the country. For example, he won the Creative Vision Award of the Rhode Island International Film Festival.[30] In Canada, his films were shown at the Montreal World Film Festival, among other places. The first edition of the queer film festival Inside Out Film and Video Festival Toronto held a Rosa von Praunheim retrospective to honor the director as a pioneer of queer cinema.[31] Several of the director's films premiered in Great Britain at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and in Australia at the Sydney Film Festival. The Tate Modern in London also showed Rosa von Praunheim's films.[32][33] The Mardi Gras Film Festival Sydney honored von Praunheim in a film series about the most important queer filmmakers.

Rosa von Praunheim with his husband Oliver Sechting, 2008

The queer film festival Ciclo Rosa (Zyklos Rosa) in Bogotá was named in honor of Rosa von Praunheim. In South America, von Praunheim's films were shown at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema and the São Paulo International Film Festival, among other places. In Asia, for example, at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Taipei Film Festival.

Von Praunheim's films are also evaluated in an academic context and shown at universities, for example at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, The Courtauld Institute of Art London,[34] the University of Pennsylvania[35] and the Columbia University. Von Praunheim's work has found its way into various academic papers and publications,[36][37][38] including from Stanford University.[39]

His film Survival in New York (1989) became von Praunheim's most commercially successful film in Germany, which was followed 20 years later by the sequel New York Memories (2009).[40]

Von Praunheim is also successful as a theater director, for example he won the Jury-Award at the Theater Authors Days (2018) at the Deutsches Theater Berlin for his play Hitler's Goat and the King's Haemorrhoids.[41]

The magazine The Advocate selected von Praunheim among the world's 50 most important queer people in the fields of art and culture. On the occasion of von Praunheim's 75th birthday (2017), the President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier thanked him publicly for his artistic work and social commitment.

He lives in Berlin with his husband Oliver Sechting, a German author, director and activist for Mental Health.

• Männer, Rauschgift und der Tod. 1967
• Oh Muvie. 1968, Fotoroman mit Elfie Mikesch
• Sex und Karriere. Rowohlt TB-V., 1978, ISBN 3-499-14214-7
• Armee der Liebenden oder Aufstand der Perversen. 1979, ISBN 3-88167-046-7
• Gibt es Sex nach dem Tode. Prometh Verlag, 1981, ISBN 3-922009-30-1
• Rote "Liebe": ein Gespräch mit Helga Goetze. Prometh Verl., 1982, ISBN 3-922009-47-6
• 50 Jahre pervers. Die sentimentalen Memoiren des Rosa von Praunheim. Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1993, ISBN 3-462-02476-0
• Folge dem Fieber und tanze: Briefwechsel mit Mario Wirz. Aufbau-Verlag, 1995
• Mein Armloch. Martin Schmitz Verlag, 2002, Gedichte
• Die Rache der alten dicken Tunte. 2006, Fotobuch
• Die Bettwurst und meine Tante Lucy. 2006, Fotobuch

• Kuzniar, Alice. The Queer German Cinema, Stanford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8047-3995-1
• Murray, Raymond. Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. TLA Publications, 1994, ISBN 1880707012
• Zielinski, Ger. Rebel with a Cause: An Interview with Rosa Von Praunheim. Cinéaste, vol. 37, no. 3, 2012.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Rosa von Praunheim

• Rosa von Praunheim at IMDb
• Official website (in German and English)
• Rosa von Praunheim in the Video Data Bank