Rosa von Praunheim, provocative pioneer of gay cinema, dies aged 83

"Rosa von Praunheim, a key figure of the New German Cinema movement who made taboo-breaking films about queer life and scandalised the country when he outed German celebrities on live TV, has died aged 83. German media reported that Praunheim died in Berlin in the early hours of Wednesday morning, just days after marrying his long-term partner at a ceremony in the German capital on Friday."

"His second feature, entitled It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives, premiered at the Berlin film festival in 1971 and has since been described as Germany's Stonewall moment, radically breaking conventions in its portrayal of queer life in the federal republic. Shot as a silent film and overlaid with socio-critical commentary, Von Praunheim's cine-essay announced its intention to make gay people more political, and did so by aggressively criticising gay men who try to copy the lifestyles of heterosexual couples."

"The film was broadcast on German public TV in 1973, though not in Bavaria, where regional broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk showed a car racing film instead. Rosa von Praunheim in 1984. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/Getty Images Over the course of his career, Von Praunheim made more than 150 short films, features and documentaries, including on the sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, fellow New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and his own mother. His last film, Satanische Sau (Satanic Sow), screened at the Berlin film festival earlier this year, and was described by the director as a dream, a parody, a farce of my life: poetic associations"

Rosa von Praunheim was born Holger Radtke in Riga in 1942 and adopted a stage name referencing the pink triangles forced on gay and bisexual men in Nazi concentration camps. He escaped East Germany in 1953, studied fine arts in Offenbach and Berlin, and began making short films in the late 1960s. His 1971 feature It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives premiered at the Berlin film festival and helped politicise queer life in Germany. He made more than 150 films, including documentaries on Magnus Hirschfeld and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He married his long-term partner days before dying in Berlin at age 83, and his final film screened at the Berlin festival earlier this year.

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