Praunheim Memoires

Marianne Rosenberg

Portrait on Marianne Rosenberg, underground icon Tabea Blumenschein dancing in the background.

Survival in New York

Rosa von Praunheim follows the lives and existential struggles of three contrasting German emigrant women in New York City. The protagonists not only tell of their exciting lives in the hectic metropolis, but many dramatic events also take place during filming.

Operndiven - Operntunten

Gay men love operas. Is that a stereotype? Markus Tiarks and Rosa von Praunheim try to find out.

Neurasia

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

Life Is Like a Cucumber

A trip through Lotti's horny life -- everything from her Aryan lover and her stay in a concentration camp while he is killed for their forbidden love -- is a fascinating look at this remarkable woman through the eyes and viewfinder of Rosa von Praunheim.

Thirty Years with the Whip

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.

Men, Heroes and Gay Nazis

The film focuses on gay men who align themselves with hard-core right wing views, skinheads and Nazis. Rosa von Praunheim stated of the subjects featured in the documentary, “Some may be shocked that I do not take a stand in my film and do not portray gay neo-Nazis as monsters, but as people living their lives in dramatic contradiction.”

The Bite

Turned while visiting New York, down-on-her-luck Neue Deutsche Welle vampire Sylvana struggles to get by in 1980s West Berlin when she realizes none of her friends want to be bitten.

City of Lost Souls

A fictionalized account about the lurid lives of a group of eccentric cabaret artists who have come from America to Berlin looking for social acceptance and a place to give full reign to their creative nature.

The Einstein of Sex: Life and Work of Dr. M. Hirschfeld

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.

I Feel Like Disco

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.

Die Bettwurst

It is love at first sight: elderly secretary Luzi and young, unemployed Dietmar find each other by accident in Rosa von Praunheim’s outrageous genre, social satire.

Fassbinder's Women

An essay film in which filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim interviews "the willing victims of Rainer Werner Fassbinder."

Neurosia: Fifty Years of Perversity

Neurosia is the autobiography of the director Rosa von Praunheim. The movie begins with Rosa presenting his autobiography in a movie theater. Before the film begins, he is shot. But - his body gets lost. A female journalist from a TV station begins researching the life of Rosa. In the course of the movie she speaks to lots of aquaintances, shows short clips from Rosas old movies. Her main aim is to provide sensational and shocking details from Rosas life. It turns out that nearly everybody had some reason to kill Rosa. At the end of the movie, she discovers Rosa at a boat where he is kept prisoner by some of his old enemies. She frees him, and the movie ends.

Transexual Menace

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.

DAS!

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.