Rosa von Praunheim
| Rosa von Praunheim | |
|---|---|
Rosa von Praunheim, Berlin, (2015)
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| Born |
Holger Bernhard Bruno Waldemar Mischwitzky 25 November 1942 Riga, Latvia |
| Occupation | Filmmaker |
| Years active | 1969-present |
| Website | http://www.rosavonpraunheim.de |
Rosa von Praunheim (born 25 November 1942) is a German film director, author, painter and the most famous gay rights activist in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
A prolific director, he has made over seventy feature films. He began his career associated to the New German Cinema as a senior member of the Berlin school of underground filmmaking. He took the artistic female name Rosa von Praunheim to remind people of the pink triangle that homosexuals had to wear in Nazi concentration camps. A pioneer of Queer Cinema, von Praunheim has been an activist in the gay rights movement. He was an early advocate of AIDS awareness and safer sex, but has been a controversial figure even within the gay community. His films center on gay related themes and strong female characters. His works are characterized by excess and employ a campy style. His films have featured such personalities as Jayne County, Vaginal Davis, Divine, and Jeff Stryker.
Von Praunheim was born in Riga, Latvia Central Prison during the German occupation of Latvia in World War II. His biological mother died in 1946 at the psychiatric hospital in Berlin Wittenauer Heilstätten. After his birth, he was given up for adoption. He only knew these facts when his adoptive mother, Gertrud Mischwitzky, told him in 2000. He discovered the fate of his biological mother in 2006 after a lengthy investigation. He documented his quest in the film Two Mothers (2007).
He received the name Holger Mitschwitzky and spent his early years in East Berlin. In 1953, he escaped from East Germany with his family to West Germany, first to the Rhineland moving later to Frankfurt am Main. After Praunheim left the classical language high school in Frankfurt (Humanistisches Gymnasium), he studied at the Werkkunstschule in Offenbach. He then transferred to the Berlin University of the Arts where he studied fine arts but did not graduate. He initially worked as painter, but eventually opted for a career in filmmaking.
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