Queens Don’t Cry

Documentary about the Berlin-based organization ACT and its unusual educational program. Founded by former schoolteacher Maike Plath and two other women, ACT’s aim is to motivate students with troubled backgrounds and to help them learning by engaging them in a drama class.

Tally Brown, New York is a 1979 documentary film directed, written and produced by Rosa von Praunheim. The film is about the singing and acting career of Tally Brown, a classically trained opera and blues singer who was a star of underground films in New York City and a denizen of its underworld in the late 1960s. In this documentary, Praunheim relies on extensive interviews with Brown, as she recounts her collaboration with Andy Warhol, Taylor Mead and others, as well as her friendships with Holly Woodlawn, and Divine. Brown opens the film with a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” and concludes with “Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide.” The film captures not only Tally Brown’s career but also a particular New York milieu in the 1970s.

In a dark and spare theatrical space, four characters use gesture, language, and movement to explore themes of desire and mortality.

A portrait of Rosa von Praunheim's neighbor, who worked for decades as a professional dominatrix in Berlin's Wilmersdorf district. While the real Lady MacLaine reflects authentically and wittily on her life and work, her life is retold in dramatized scenes.

In the background, Rosa von Praunheim sings a love song in a foreign language. The sound engineer counts as the camera moves over Rosa’s black plastic jacket. Carla Aulaulu sings while a young girl (also Carla) collapses from exhaustion while climbing stairs with a shopping bag. An erotic relationship is suggested as the camera focuses on the bag swinging between the maid’s thighs. The maid struggles to make tea for the Klostermann family, who sit stiffly in evening gowns with plastic egg cups on their heads and paper in their noses. One daughter stabs the maid. The family watches the maid’s excessive dancing, amused and embarrassed. Carla collapses repeatedly, with a twitch being the last.

The life story of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a German Jew, who as a physician established the field of sexology, and fought militantly against German anti-sodomy laws in the late 19th century. The script reveals main characters in Hirschfeld's life including impossible love interest Baron von Teschenberg, and Hirschfeld's aids- young Karl Giese and guardian angel, the transvestite Dorchen, as they establish the First Institute of Sexual Sciences in Berlin in 1920, and follows their struggles to keep it open, up to the rise of the Third Reich in the mid 1930s.

A youth in middle of self-discovery, offending with his father, just discovering his sexuality and hiding it again. A boy who's often lonely loses a loved one and is in love with the wrong one.

Documentary about the current hustler scene in Berlin. Based on interviews with former and active prostitutes, the realities of male prostitutes in Berlin are treated. The film is objective, and records the hustler scene as a social Submilieu, which is characterized by both tragic fates, as well as everyday things and routines. Not only the direct sale of sexual services is discussed, but also other aspects associated with male prostitution: poverty, drug addiction, AIDS, crime, migration, love and partnership.

Lars, a male nurse from Saarbrücken, moves to Berlin with his lover, Roland. They begin to renovate an apartment and their happiness seems almost complete. What Roland doesn’t know is that, while secretly checking out Berlin’s night life, Lars is also experimenting with a deadly poison.

Daniel, a young gay man, tries to pursue a traditional bourgeois relationship and lifestyle with his live-in boyfriend, but after their love quickly fades, he finds himself moving through different avenues of gay subculture, in pursuit of exotic pleasures.

Pioneering gay German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim explores America’s burgeoning trans rights movement—from early leaders like Virginia Prince to contemporary activist groups like the titular Transexual Menace—in this powerful, yet sensitive documentary.

Nurses on the night shift roll dice to see which AIDS patient will die next. The owner of a gay bathhouse gets Kaposi's Sarcoma but tries to keep his mind on profits. An epidemic victim is harassed by a reporter on his death bed - he sticks her with a contaminated syringe. The government opens a quarantine called Hell Gay Land. Gay terrorists kidnap the Minister of Health...

A newly arrived guest of a Hollywood hotel charms and amazes the regulars, and they decide to invite him to their Christmas dinner.

Every evening at 6:45 p.m. sharp, a prominent guest takes a seat on the red sofa—and DAS! provides daily updates on what's hot in the north.

The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.

You may not recognize the name Ralf König, but you probably recognize his art. One of the most commercially successful German comic book creators, he is best known for books like “SchwulComix (GayComix)” that offer a twisted take on queer culture. Equal parts Tom of Finland and R. Crumb, König’s comics are sexually charged and often politically incorrect, portraying daily routines of gay life alongside serious subjects like AIDS. King of Comics is a touching portrait of a cutting-edge artist with a wicked sense of humor. All hail the king! —Jimmy Radosta