Free Nights

Janusz, a pawnbroker in his late 40s, is confronted with the sudden death of his estranged wife. To cover up for all his failings, he hires the young prostitute Irena to act as his girlfriend and join him for the funeral. A tale about guilt, abandonment and love.

Ela lives in a small provincial town in Poland. Her daily life is stuck in a routine, balancing work and family. But Ela has a dream: Like many young Polish people, Ela, too wants to escape the tristesse of the council housing estate and move West, into a better life.

Rex Gildo’s songs and musicals made him very popular. His best-known song was “Fiesta Mexicana” from 1972. Rosa von Praunheim tells the story of his life in the context of the gay pride movement, the normative pressures of the Schlager music industry, and the profound changes currently underway.

When suspicions of infidelity drive a forgetful housewife to the brink of madness, her unravelling marriage explodes into a deadly confrontation, revealing shocking secrets and leaving a trail of tragedy in its wake.

Rosa von Praunheim is an icon in the scene: gay activist, loving provocateur and a very special filmmaker from Berlin for decades. His curiosity for people and their fates runs through his extensive film work. For his 70th birthday he has now made 70 new short films. In the first part of the big project, he confronts Thilo Sarrazin with the mayor of Neukölln, Heinz Buschkowsky, and the Turkish lawyer and women's rights activist Seyran Ates; shows a homosexual hustler in Bucharest; gossip reporter Andreas Kurtz, who knows everything about Berlin's celebrities; Rosa's neighbors who live with her dependent brother; Esther Bauer, who survived Auschwitz, and the Berlin comedian Ades Zabel. High on the roofs of Berlin, the gay chimney sweep Alain Rappsilber tells him about his fetish leather meeting Folsom.