„Death is an orgasm!” R.I.P. Rosa von Praunheim

What John Waters was to New Hollywood, Rosa von Praunheim was to New German Cinema: a whole bucketful of camp, trash, bad taste, and shrill freak shows. While colleagues such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Schroeter presented their works with deadly serious expressions, claiming artistic merit and receiving applause from the educated middle classes, Holger Mischwitzsky (alias Rosa von Praunheim) caused vicarious embarrassment and laughter with cult hits such as DIE BETTWURST (1971). Even dying was funny with him: “Is there sex after death?” he asked in one of his books (1981). He gave himself the answer: “Death is an orgasm! I believe in sex after death!” Exotic words for a time that even doubts sex before death.

In addition to flashy presentations of his stars such as Lotti Huber and Luzi Kryn, Praunheim also created serious documentaries in 16mm format. Among them: IT IS NOT THE HOMOSEXUAL WHO IS PERVERTED, BUT THE SITUATION IN WHICH HE LIVES (1972). This sparked heated debates when it was first broadcast on TV. Praunheim not only showed everyday gay life, but also called on those affected to end their secrecy, come out, and form a collective. The motto: “Out of the toilets, into the streets!”

But self-empowerment requires writing your own history, inspiring role models, pioneers, and trailblazers. Ergo, Praunheim made two biopics about pioneers of sexual liberalization: the bisexual nude dancer Anita Berber (ANITA – DANCES OF VICE, 1987) and the sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld (THE EINSTEIN OF SEX, 1999), the discoverer of sexual intermediary stages.

Praunheim’s image as a sexual taboo-breaker dominated media coverage of him to such an extent that his second central theme was almost lost: death. In the early 1980s, it threatened to stifle newly won freedoms in the form of the AIDS virus. Once again, Praunheim was at the forefront, shooting EIN VIRUS KENNT KEINE MORAL (A Virus Knows No Morals, 1986), the first German-language film about HIV. It was a macabre parody of the reactions at the time: panic, exclusion, blame, sensationalist headlines, and the greed of pharmaceutical companies.

But Praunheim’s preoccupation with death goes deeper, back to his childhood: to his Christian upbringing. To the visions of hell in Catholicism. He combines these in the docu-feature film ROSA’S DESCENT INTO HELL (2009) with autobiographical reflection. Less a reckoning than “his personal search for the origins of the soul.” (Home-of-films.com)

And where is Rosa von Praunheim’s soul now, a few days after his death? Let us wish him an eternity of endless orgasms, just as he hoped for until the very end.