We bid farewell to filmmaker, author, visual artist, and activist Rosa von Praunheim, who died in Berlin on December 17 at the age of 83. With his essay film NICHT DER HOMOSEXUELLE IST PERVERS, SONDERN DIE SITUATION, IN DER ER LEBT (later abbreviated by himself as “Schwulenfilm” or “gay film”), he produced a scathing tirade against bourgeois gays for Westdeutscher Rundfunk in 1970, accusing them of self-imposed invisibility and passivity. The controversial discussions that followed various television broadcasts and the screening at the 1971 Berlinale led to the formation of the first German gay groups in over 50 cities in West and East Germany, which became a political movement.
Rosa was born Holger Radtke in 1942 during the German occupation of Riga, grew up with adoptive parents in Frankfurt am Main, studied art in Offenburg and West Berlin, and took on the stage name Rosa von Praunheim. Influenced by American underground film, he began making films himself in the late 1960s and developed queer narrative styles that he maintained until his death: feature film scenes and documentary observations were mixed, sound and image were often used in contrasting ways, and not infrequently—as in NICHT DER HOMOSEXUELLE…, written with Martin Dannecker—the narrative tone had elements of angry rhetoric or ironic (sometimes also serious) know-it-allism. This aesthetic of rapid montage of disparate elements always sparked discussion, made different positions visible, and helped build the community’s self-confidence.
In 1986, Rosa made the first German feature film about AIDS—in the form of a queer musical comedy (!), EIN VIRUS KENNT KEINE MORAL (A Virus Knows No Morals) used crude exaggeration and anarchic humor to depict the uncertainties, excitement, trivialization, and flaring homophobia in society. Three years later, he caused a scandal within the gay scene when he first polemicized against unsafe sex and promiscuity in his AIDS TRILOGY (1989/90) and called for self-protection within the scene, but above all when he outed Hape Kerkeling and Alfred Biolek against their will on German private television. It was an action that triggered deep-seated fears of becoming visible outside of safe spaces, even though it did not harm the careers of the two individuals concerned in this specific case.
In 2007, Wolfgang Theis curated the tribute “Rosa Retires” at Schwules Museum on Rosa’s 65th birthday, which was of course nonsense. After that, Rosa produced over 90 more films (including 70 on his 70th birthday in 2012), plays, exhibitions, poetry collections, and much more. Rosa was last a guest at the Schwules Museum in the summer of 2023, when we exhibited pictures of him and the artist Richild Holt—the two had painted each other in New York in 1996.
Rosa was an exceptional media personality, an incredibly prolific artist, and a provocative conversationalist, which often obscures the fact that he spent his entire life moving in queer networks and repeatedly created public platforms for people who were otherwise ignored by the mainstream media—including historical heroes of the queer scene: Magnus Hirschfeld, Anita Berber, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. Rosa worked for decades with Elfi Mikesch, who was the cinematographer for many of his films. He appeared in films by Ulrike Ottinger, lived and worked with Werner Schroeter for a time, and promoted younger filmmakers such as Axel Ranisch and Michael Stock.
He received the Teddy Award this year for one of his last films, SATANISCHE SAU (SATANIC SOW). In its laudatory speech, the jury said: “A filmmaker waits for death and has no need to tidy up his apartment beforehand. The balance sheet of his life is not presented as a monologue, but is exercised with an alter ego as a pagan ritual based on shared experiences. His almost convulsive, incessant production was fueled by the queer experiences of death that accompanied his life: HIV, death threats, and finally, old age. Sex and filmmaking are antidotes to disappearing, falling silent, and becoming untouchable.”
Rosa von Praunheim will not disappear. Our thoughts are with his husband, friends, and family.
The image shows a detail from a portrait painting of La Milli, an actress and costume designer who belonged to Rosa and Elfi Mikesch’s circle of friends. It adorned the cover of Rosa’s book “Sex und Karriere” (Sex and Career, 1978). The artist donated the original painting to Schwules Museum.