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Rosa von Praunheim, gay filmmaker, was born in 1942 as Holger Mischwitzky in Riga, Latvia. He chose his artist name Rosa to remind people of the pink triangle ("rosa Winkel") that homosexuals were forced to wear in the Nazi concentration camps. He has made more than 50 films, many of which deal with his favorite subjects: homosexuality, older women, New York City. "Neurosia – 50 Years of Perversity" (feature, 1995) is the story of his scandalous life.
In 1971 he achieved notoriety throughout Germany with his film "It’s not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Situation in Which He Lives". The appearance of this film was crucial to the founding of the new German gay movement. Over 50 political gay groups sprang up in the wake of his film’s showing in the cities and towns of Germany.
His film "Army of Lovers” documented the American gay and lesbian movement from the 1950’s to 1976.
He documented the New York underground theater and film scene with several films including "Underground and Emigrants” (1975) and "Tally Brown, New York” (1977).
Back in Berlin he made feature films such as "Red Love” (1980), "Our Corpses Are Still Alive” (1981) and "City of Lost Souls” (1983). These films were invited to festivals all over the world.
His feature film "Horror Vacui” won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award for best experimental film in 1985. "Anita – Dances of Vice” (feature, 1987), the life story of a scandalous nude dancer in Berlin in the 1920’s, earned international attention.
With the black comedy "A Virus Knows No Morals” (1985), he produced one of the first feature films about AIDS. The documentaries "Positive” and "Silence = Death” (both made in 1989 and dealing with aspects of AIDS activism in New York) together with "Fire Under Your Ass” (1990, about AIDS in Berlin) composed the AIDS Trilogy.
In Germany Rosa was very vocal in his efforts to
educate people about the danger of AIDS and the
necessity of practicing Safe Sex.
These efforts alienated many gays who came to consider him a moralistic panic-monger.
"Survival in New York” (1989), a documentary about three young German women living in New York, became Rosa’s biggest commercial success in German-speaking countries. In 1992 he produced the moving life story of the East German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, "I Am My Own Woman”, which earned the International Film Critics Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival.
Again in Germany, Rosa von Praunheim outraged the public by outing famous show business personalities and politicians on television. This led to a crisis of gay boycott of his work and a climate of enmity which has made his life difficult but nonetheless interesting. In spite of enemies and middle age, his energy is unbroken.
In 1996 he finished a feature-length documentary called "Transexual Menace”, the self-willed spelling of the name of an exciting political action group whose transgendered members have chosen to define themselves and demand their rights.
"Gay Courage – 100 Years of the Gay Rights Movement in Germany and Beyond” (1998) is a 90-minute documentary celebrating Magnus Hirschfeld’s founding of the first political group in history to fight for homosexual rights (Berlin, 1897).
The gay Jewish sexologist Hirschfeld is the focus of "The Einstein of Sex – The Life and Work of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld”, a 35mm, 100-minute dramatic feature finished in 1999. "Can I Be Your Bratwurst, Please?” (35mm, 28 minutes, 1999), is an "Erotic Tale” produced by Regina Ziegler and starring Jeff Stryker.
In 1999 Rosa made "Wunderbares Wrodow” (a prize-winning documentary about the people in and around a German village and its castle) and in 2000 "Fassbinders Women - The Blissful Victims of Rainer Werner F.” about the private life of the controversial German director. The film was shown on television and caused sensations at many international festivals.
In October of 2000, Rosa was made a professor and since then teaches directing at the Film and Television Academy at Babelsberg in Potsdam.
"Queens Don't Lie" premiered in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival in February 2002. This portrait of four political Berlin queens - Bev Stroganoff, Ichgola Androgyn, Ovo Maltine, and Tima die Göttliche - has since been invited to festivals on every continent except Antarctica.
The feature film "Cows Knocked Up by Fog", starring members of the Berliner homeless theater "Rats 07", premiered in September 2002 at the Venice Film Festival, was later screened at Hof and Rotterdam, and ran in selected German cinemas.
In honor of Rosa's 60th birthday on November 25, 2002, the German-French cultural channel ARTE broadcast a theme evening including a new self-portrait shot by Swiss cameraman René Krummenacher called "Phooey Rosa!"
ZDF and ARTE commissioned the documentary "Rats 07", which was completed in the autumn of 2003.
At the Berlin Film Festival of 2005 Rosa was invited to show three new films: "Who Is Helene Schwarz?", about the "muse of the new German cinema". Helene has worked as a secretary at the German Academy of Film and Television in Berlin since 1966 and still is taking care of students today at the age of 78. A loving portrait of a wonderful woman and a look at the history of West Germany's first film school from its revolutionary beginning with many famous film directors giving statements; "Men heroes and gay Nazis", a long documentation about the interest of some gay men in radical right-wing politics;
"A Life in Vain – Walter Schwarze", a short film of 16 minutes about a man who spent five years of his youth in concentration camps because he was homosexual. He granted Rosa this unique interview shortly before his death.
Also in 2005, Rosa made two other short films dealing with witnesses of the Nazi era. "Love and Torment – Albrecht Becker", 14 minutes. The retired 90-year-old film architect tells, among other things, about his prison term for homosexuality under the Nazis and admits that as a masochist, he rather enjoyed it.
"More Luck than Sense – Joe Luga", 11 minutes. This singer entertained the German troops during WWI…in drag! Even in Russia as a prisoner of war he was able to indulge his passions. It wasn't until the 50's and 60's in Germany that he went to jail for being gay.
Finished in the autumn of 2005, "Your Heart in My Brain" is a feature film about cannibalism. Martin Molitor and Martin Ontrop play the cannibal and his victim. Rosa's words: "I've seldom had the pleasure and privilege of working with such brilliant actors."
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