Rosa Von Praunheim
The Einstein of Sex by Rosa Von Praunheim
Tuesday, June 27; 6:30 & 8:30 pm (2 showings)
Location: Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, 4235 19th Street @ Collingwood
Tickets: $7, Qcc
The Einstein of Sex (Der Einstein Des Sex): Life and Work of Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld
Germany 1999, (Video Screening), 98 min, color
Directed by Rosa von Praunheim
The film is a dramatic feature about the once world-famous sexologist Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, whose work was the subject of an exhibition and a cabaret performance, presented by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, the Qcc, HMI, GLBTHS and others, in 1997. In 1897, Hirschfeld, who was Jewish, gay and a socialist, founded the first political gay group in Berlin where he opened his Institute of Sexual Science in 1920. In 1933, the Nazis destroyed his life’s work, and all attempts to organize an equivalent institute for sexual science have failed. The film reveals Hirschfeld through the major figures in his life: from the unfulfilled love affair with Baron von Teschenberg to the happy years with young Karl Giese; from his struggle with his major gay opponent right-wing writer Adolf Brand, to his relationship with the transvestite Dorchen, a character of with and great courage.
Rosa von Praunheim was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1942. At the age of 10 he escaped to the West and moved to Praunheim near Frankfurt. Living in Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles, Rosa is a well-known gay filmmaker and activist who has made over 50 films. The titles include: It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse but the Situation in Which He Lives (1970); Army of Lovers (1971-76); A Virus Knows No Morals (1985); I Am My Own Woman (1992); Trannsexual Menace (1996).
