Following the horrifying success of last year’s SEX DEMON, historian and archivist Elizabeth Purchell (of Ask Any Buddy) returns to Spectacle for a program of incendiary and exciting documentaries by German filmmaker and writer Rosa von Praunheim. Spanning the late 1970s through the mid-1990s, these six films offer a changing portrait of queer sex and sensibility, addressing respectability, popular culture, and the radical efforts of AIDS activists across a shifting political landscape.
ARMY OF LOVERS, OR REVOLT OF THE PERVERTS
dir. Rosa von Praunheim, 1979
108 mins. Germany.
SUNDAY, JUNE 05 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 11 – 11:55 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 24 – 7:00 PM (with introduction $10)
MONDAY, JUNE 27 – 10:00 PM
Shot over the course of seven years, ARMY OF LOVERS traces the development — and splintering — of the American gay rights movement from the Mattachine Society through the end of the 1970s. From gay porno legend Fred Halsted to Anita Bryant and beyond, this polarizing film is a crucial document of the liberation era and a condemnation of gay complacency that still resonates.
TALLY BROWN, NEW YORK
dir. Rosa von Praunheim, 1979
93 mins. Germany.
In English.
FRIDAY, JUNE 03 – 11:55 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 18 – 10:00 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 24 – 10:00 PM (with introduction $10)
Classically-trained opera singer, cabaret mainstay, and underground film star Tally Brown commands the screen in this German Film Award-winning portrait by Rosa von Praunheim. With appearances and appreciations by Divine, Taylor Mead, Holly Woodlawn, and more, TALLY BROWN, NEW YORK is a tribute to a larger-than-life personality and an elegy for a changing city.
THE AIDS TRILOGY:
1. POSITIVE
dir. Rosa von Praunheim, 1990
82 mins. Germany.
In English.
FRIDAY, JUNE 03 – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, JUNE 06 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 26 – 5:00 PM
In this first installment of the AIDS Trilogy, Rosa von Praunheim teams up with gay activist filmmaker Phil Zwickler to give a multifaceted look at the New York gay community’s response to the epidemic and their efforts to provoke Mayor Ed Koch into taking action to fight it. Devastating, inspiring, and, as always, fiercely controversial, POSITIVE is an essential, yet overlooked piece of activist filmmaking and one of the finest chronicles of the epidemic at a time it was still largely being ignored.
2. SILENCE = DEATH
dir. Rosa von Praunheim, 1990
58 mins. Germany.
In English.
TUESDAY, JUNE 07 – 10:00 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 17 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 26 – 6:30 PM
Designed by Rosa von Praunheim and Phil Zwickler as the ‘angrier’ companion to POSITIVE, this middle installment of the AIDS Trilogy focuses on New York artist’s reactions to the epidemic and its influence on their work. Anchored by a series of fiery monologues by David Wojnarowicz and also featuring interviews and performances by Emilio Cubeiro, Allen Ginsburg, and Keith Haring, SILENCE = DEATH is a powerful call to action in the face of government apathy.
3. FEUER UNTERM ARSCH
dir. Rosa von Praunheim, 1990
52 mins. Germany.
In German with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, JUNE 10 – 10:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 26 – 8:00 PM
In this final chapter of the AIDS Trilogy, Rosa von Praunheim turns his camera to the state of AIDS activism — or, more accurately, lack of it — in his native Germany. A sobering contrast to POSITIVE and SILENCE = DEATH, the rarely-screened FEUER UNTERM ARSCH led directly to one of the most controversial events of von Praunheim’s long career: his televised campaign of outing closeted gay German celebrities to force action against the epidemic in the early 1990s.
TRANSEXUAL MENACE
dir. Rosa von Praunheim, 1996
78 mins. Germany.
In English.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 08 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 11 – 10:00 PM
THURSDAY, JUNE 16 – 10:00 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 24 – 11:55 PM
Rosa von Praunheim teamed up with acclaimed photographer Mariette Pathy Allen for this nuanced portrait of American trans lives and politics in the 1990s. Similar in form to ARMY OF LOVERS and the AIDS Trilogy, this film explores the various factions of the burgeoning trans rights movement, from pioneers like Leslie Feinberg and Virginia Prince to events like the activist group Transexual Menace’s protest at the first Transgender Lobby Day and the Southern Comfort and Fantasia Fair conferences. Woefully underseen and rarely screened, TRANSEXUAL MENACE is an essential piece of trans film history that’s sadly now more relevant than ever.
ROSA VON PRAUNHEIM is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In over 50 years, von Praunheim has made more than 150 films (short and feature-length films). His works influenced the development of LGBTQ+ rights movements worldwide. He began his career associated to the New German Cinema as a senior member of the Berlin school of underground filmmaking. He took the artistic female name Rosa von Praunheim to remind people of the pink triangle that homosexuals had to wear in Nazi concentration camps, as well as the Frankfurt neighborhood of Praunheim where he grew up. A pioneer of Queer Cinema, von Praunheim has been an activist in the gay rights movement. He was an early advocate of AIDS awareness and safer sex. His films center on gay-related themes and strong female characters, are characterized by excess and employ a campy style. They have featured such personalities as Keith Haring, Larry Kramer, Diamanda Galás, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Judith Malina, Jeff Stryker, Jayne County, Divine and a row of Warhol superstars.