Influential German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim had died aged 83, he was part of the Queer Cinema movement of the 1990 and made hundreds of short films and features that tackled LGBTIQA+ related topics.
A pioneer of the gay rights movement in West Germany and Switzerland, he was an early advocate of AIDS awareness and safe sex practices, alongside his impressive output as a filmmaker.
Keith Haring, Larry Kramer, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Divine, Jayne County, and adult film star Jeff Stryker are just a few of the well known names who appeared in his films, over 50 years he made over 150 different works.
He grew up under the name Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky, his family lived in East Berlin but fled to the West in 1953 when he was eleven years old. In 2000, when he was 58 years old, his elderly mother shared with him that he had been adopted at birth.
He was actually born Holger Radtke in Riga Central Prison in Latvia during World War II. After a lengthy investigation he discovered his birth mother had died in 1946 at a psychiatric hospital in Berlin. He documented his journey of learning about his origins in his 2007 film Two Mothers.
He began making films in the late 1960’s using the non-de-plume of Rosa von Praunheim, a nod to the Rosa Winkel – the pink triangle that gay people were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps.
He made his mark with avant-garde films that quickly gained a cult following with works including The Bed Sausage and It’s Not the Homosexual Who is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives.
In the 1970s he travelled to America and made films capturing the growing gay liberation movement that built in the post Stonewall years, and in the 1980s with the arrival of the AIDS crisis he turned to making films about the epidemic. HIs 1986 film A Virus Knows No Morals is seen as a landmark work.
He caused controversy in 1991 when during a live television interview he outed German television stars Hape Kerkeling and Alfred Biolek without their consent.
More films about HIV came with Positive, Silence = Death and Fire Under Your Ass. The trilogy of films saw him win the LGBTI Film Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. ALongside his filmmaker he founded the German branch of the organisation Act Up.
Later in his career Rosa von Praunheim made films about transgender rights and experiences, and he also spent some time teaching at a film school inspiring a new generation of queer filmmakers.
Five days before his death he married his longtime partner Oliver Sechting, an author and mental health advocate. He died in Berlin aged 83. His final film Satanic Sow was released earlier this year, an experimental and autobiographical work that served as his sign off.
In an interview with DW earlier this month he reflected on his impending death and many films. “It’s the end of my life, and I soon will die. I have a brain tumor and don’t have much time left.”
“I’m looking forward to dying. It’s a wonderful feeling to rest, not to be constantly running around and shooting one film after another. I’ll be glad when I find my peace,” he added.
Following his passing filmmakers have been praising his work and advocacy. Director Bruce La Bruce said he was saddened to hear of Rosa von Praunheim’s death, noting that he had been inspired by the German filmmaker.
