Rosa von Praunheim: Liberation & Death
- Luke Safely
- Dec 25, 2025
- 8 min read
Rosa von Praunheim was one of the loudest early voices in Europe when it came to LGBTQ+ activism and he made sure everyone was listening whether they liked it or not. Primarily Rosa used the camera to scream all of these feelings to the world with over 150 film projects in his 50 year career that toured multiple film festivals, art museums, retrospectives, and private spaces all around the world. It came as a surprise when hearing about Rosa von Praunheim's death on December 17, 2025 that only one of my many LGBTQ+ friends mentioned it all. After talking about him with a few others I am discovering the gap of newer generations of LGBTQ+ community and Rosa; mainly seems to be from a lack of information and accessibility to Rosa's projects. Hopefully this retrospective can be a beginning bridge that can inspire new voices with the echoes of the past.
It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives (1971)
Rosa von Praunheim's approach to this film is a pointed social commentary on the gay community through a mockumentary about a character named Daniel who has moved to Berlin to finally live his life as a homosexual. No subtype of homosexual is safe in this film Rosa attacks the queens, sugar daddies, the leathers, the public toilet loiterers, the self hating bourgeoisie, the elderly boy lovers, and the faeries by pointing out ridiculous stereotypes and expectations of homosexual men. Primarily through snarky tongue in cheek pseudo psychoanalysis, Rosa mocks that gay men are responsible for their own loneliness and dangers to themselves because of their actions (or more so inaction). Rosa offers a solution at the end of the film when Daniel finds himself with a group of homosexual men from all previous mentioned sects and they begin a discussion on how they must collectivize for their rights even calling upon intersectionality by working with comrades of different class, race, and gender. This film was so radical for its time it ignited discussions within the gay community that eventually did push through multiple activist organizations not only in Germany but across the world.
Army of Lovers or Revolt of the Perverts (1979)
Rosa moved to the United States in the early 1970s and immediately began working on this documentary which is a historical walk through of gay liberation activism in the United States. Rosa does what he does best by pointing out the flaws with the current activism system by highlighting the multiple organizations springing up starting around Gay Activist Alliance and Daughters of Belitis and the splintering into so many micro-organizations that they were getting into ridiculous things like Boy Lovers (adults wanting to have sex with young adult ages 12-15) and Gay Nazi alliances. Rosa points out this fragmentation was weakening their collective powers of the organizations originally of the mid 1950s. Rosa uses inflammatory language by referring to publicly tolerated gay baths and bars being Gestapos; only crumbs that they were settling for instead of pushing for legitimate legal rights. Some of this division can be seen like when Grace Jones performs at a pride event and some of the second wave lesbian feminists were outraged by the objectification and sexism that the gay men still engaged in. Rosa could not highlight the importance enough of intersectionality in collective movements and how division crumbles upon itself.
Side note: There is a funny moment when doing some additional research on Rosa von Praunheim I learned that Abel Ferrara (dir. Ms. 45, Bad Lieutenant, King of New York) took some classes from Rosa at the San Franciso Art Institute. Here is a direct quote from Abel's memoir Scene:
Now Abel does really know how to spin and stretch a tale for entertainment sake so I blew this off as silly hearsay but Rosa openly talks about allowing his San Fran film students to record him engaging in sexual acts with a male porno star in this film. So I would like to apologize to Abel for not believing him and to Rosa for doubting in his radical insanity.
Transexual Menace (1996)
Rosa did not only concentrate on gay subjects in his filmmaking as he was also quite involved with the trans movement during his time. Transexual Menace is a small portrait of trans lives in America during the 1990s and the politics of gender of the time. Rosa's outsider view can't help but push into trans subject's lives like asking about whether they had the "operation" yet but there are moments of true brilliance in this like activist Leslie Feinberg discussing about the struggle of gender fluidity and how there is so much we still don't have language for which still resonates strongly today.
this is a for german tv cut down version of the original film
City of Lost Souls (1983)
This is the most campy and outrageous of Rosa's films in which we follow several immigrants who have made their home at a burger restaurant in Berlin. The film stars trans and drag icons Angie Stardust, Layne County, and Joaquin La Habana as they struggle to just live their lives as they wish in a world that doesn't fully understand them yet. There are a handful of catchy tunes in this glam musical but one can't help but feel the heartbreak of these people when reflecting on the tragedies that unfold upon them all throughout the film.
Tally Brown, New York (1979)
Tally Brown is a singer and actor who emerged during the Andy Warhol Factory movement but her star quickly faded due to her age at her coming. Rosa covers Tally's early life and the things that lead up to what Tally is at that time including a disabling work accident and how she can still remain so positive with her body image and life no matter all the tragedies surrounding her life. This film has cameos with Holly Woodlawn, Divine, and urban artist Ching Ho Cheng slowly unveiling a love letter to the city of ever changing culture that raised Tally, New York.
Rosa had a deep love for the story of immigrants and the city of New York which he visits multiple times in Survival in New York (1989) and New York Memories (2010). Survival in New York is a documentary about three German immigrants trying adapt and survive in 1980s New York which takes on wealth, sexuality, and mental illness. New York Memories Rosa returns to two of the subjects of Survival in New York but also weaves in his personal experiences of New York in the 1970s while examining the impactful change of the "cleaning" up of New York under the regime of Rudy Giuliani in the 1990s. There are no publicly available videos of these films but try to find them if you can.
Positive (1990) & Silence = Death (1990)
Rosa's AIDS trilogy is one of the biggest successes in his career in which he attacks the AIDS crisis head on working with victims and artists to create a call to arms. Positive (1990) follows the AIDS organizations in New York and the grass roots organization that gay men had to do to raise awareness and funds for research due to the government (national and local) ignoring the bodies stacking up. Larry Kramer is the driving voice of the film as he criticizes organizations he helped form Gay Men's Health Crisis due to them using funds to primarily help AIDS victims die peacefully but not doing enough to actually fund research in the finding of a cure for AIDS which results in the forming of a new direct action organization ACT UP.
Silence = Death (1990) is a collection of pieces from radical artists who have been infected with AIDS. The film has interviews with the likes of artist Keith Haring and writer Allen Ginsburg but David Wojnarowicz spoken word is the true hero of the film; multiple poems taking on the fear of death and bigotry while dealing with the boiling over anger that comes from a government that has completely thrown you away.
Sadly I have not been able to find and see the third film of the trilogy Fire Under Your Ass (1990) but imagine if they are as poignant as the previous two it is a must see as well.
A Virus Knows No Morals (1986)
Before Rosa returned to the United States to work on the trilogy he made an AIDS narrative feature film that is one of his most angriest punk films. This film tackles the AIDS outbreak in Germany by taking on the systems that are perpetuating the disease. Religion, healthcare system, therapist, and even loved ones aren't safe in this film as we watch the downfall of a group of people who have been exposed to AIDS and the governments reaction reaching a point of absolute dystopian hell by not stopping an epidemic from turning into a pandemic.
Men, Heroes, and Gay Nazis (2005)
To stop making films was not a choice for Rosa he continued to investigate previous ideas he touched on and this reaches its most silly with a film about the rise of homosexuality in the neo-nazi movement in Europe. The documentary at first points out the ridiculous contradicting idea of gay and Nazism simply being machismo fetishistic behavior. This is quickly shut down by the investigation of the dark homosexual secrets of the original Nazi party within even it higher ranks. My favorite thing about this film is a very simple quote from an ex-Nazi that it is more ludicrous to believe a gay man can't be anti semitic than a gay man being a Nazi. Identity and history is much more complicated than a simple I'm this identity so I must also be this politically but Rosa does have to point out the fact that while at first the original Nazi party was tolerant of homosexual behavior in its ranks it was quickly silenced and persecuted when the time came which sounds very familiar to the tolerance of homosexuality in the neo-nazi uprising of the time.
Rosa even finished and premiered at the Berlinale International Film Festival Satanic Sow (2025) shortly before his death. This film is supposed to be a surreal auto biographic telling of moments in Rosa von Praunheim's life that I'm looking forward to seeing once it is translated to English.
Even after writing all this I feel like I have barely brushed upon the films and life of Rosa von Praunheim, a man who was taken away as a baby from his schizophrenic mother (who was executed in a psychward), fled from East Germany to West Germany, a leader in the New German film movement with the likes of Fassbinder and Herzog, an apprentice to one of the cofounders of the New American film movement Gregory Markopoulos, writer of several books on sexuality and government, radical professor to the likes of Abel Ferrara and Julia von Heinz, and early painter which he never stopped doing either. The one thing Rosa always admitted is that he never finished a proper high school education failing classes multiple times and even when he was eventually accepted to art school he never graduated. Rosa thanks that this happened because he believes that education systems teach you how to think and art is about how you feel and only you can do that honestly enough to reach the world and possibly change it. The world needs more Rosa's and I hope he will inspire future generations to continue the path of Liberation because it is not complete and always in danger.
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