We have a lot in store for you at the start of the new year! Whether it’s at the DFF cinema in Frankfurt, at the Caligari Filmbühne in Wiesbaden or online for home viewing on your sofa: Here, you’ll find our queer offerings freshly compiled every month for a quick overview. And as always, besides films and events explicitly addressing non-heteronormative themes, we also highlight content that may have a queer subtext or might be interesting to parts of the LGBT*IQA community for other reasons.
It’s worth checking this page regularly, as additional events may be added spontaneously throughout the month.
Films and Events at the DFF Cinema
Monday, 1 January, 8:00 pm
ROTER HIMMEL (Afire)
Film Series “Cinema Highlights 2023“
DE 2023. Dir: Christian Petzold, Cast: Thomas Schubert, Langston Uibel, Paula Beer. 103 mins. DCP. German language.
Winner of the Silver Bear and the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Berlinale, AFIRE tells with great precision and finesse the story of a quartet that gathers in a summer house in the midst of nature, sharing wine and food, discussing Heine and the art of storytelling, swimming, teasing each other, and making love in fluid constellations. Meanwhile, outside, forest fires rage, at first abstract and distant, then ominously close. Watch the trailer
Tuesday, 2 January , 8:00 pm
ANATOMY OF A FALL
Film Series “Cinema Highlights 2023“
FR 2023. Dir: Justine Triet. Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner. 151 mins. DCP. English and French version with German subtitles.
In this last year’s winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Sandra Hüller shines as a bisexual writer who finds herself in court when her husband dies under mysterious circumstances after falling from a window. The main character’s sexual orientation plays a subordinate role, but it’s this matter-of-fact portrayal that makes Justine Triet’s expertly directed and written film so refreshing. With a number of awards already under their belt, both Triet and Sandra Hüller are also considered possible Oscar contenders. Watch the trailer
Sunday, 7 January, 7:30 pm
DEAD GIRLS DANCING
Film Series Was tut sich – im deutschen Film?
DE 2023. Dir: Anna Roller. Cast: Luna Jordan, Noemi Nicolaisen, Katharina Stark, Sara Giannelli. 98 mins. DCP. German.
Ira, Ka, and Malin, fresh out of high school, embark on a promising road trip through heat-soaked Italy, where the trio soon picks up mysterious hitchhiker Zoe. When their car breaks down, the group is stranded in a seemingly deserted mountain village. Far from the expectations of adulthood, the friends begin to test the limits of their newfound freedom. In the midst of it all, a powerful attraction brews between Ira and Zoe. Watch the trailer
Various times and dates
FRIDA and FRIDA, NATURALEZA VIVA
Film Series “Frida Kahlo”
Painter Frida Kahlo, born in 1907, is often described as a surrealist or magical realist who used her art and style to explore issues of identity, post-colonialism, gender, race, and class. Her legacy is diverse; in today’s pop culture, she’s best known for her proud embrace of her Mexican heritage, her unique self-portraits, her sexual nonconformity, and her passionate love affairs. The Opelvillen in Rüsselsheim are presenting an exhibition of the artist’s photographs through February 4. The exhibition is accompanied by screenings of FRIDAstarring Salma Hayek and Paul Leduc’s FRIDA, NATURALEZA VIVA at the DFF cinema.
Tuesday, 16 January, 6:00 pm / Saturday 27 January, 8:30 pm
DOG DAY AFTERNOON
Film Series “Sidney Lumet“
USA 1975. Dir: Sidney Lumet. Cast: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning. 124 mins. 35mm. Original version with German subtitles.
Based on a true story, Lumet’s masterpiece recounts how a small bank robbery in New York goes awry, leading to a hostage situation and a police siege. “DOG DAY AFTERNOON” is one of the first films featuring an openly queer character. While the first hour is marked by subtexts, the second half introduces Leon, a transgender woman lacking funds for gender confirmation surgery. She’s the former lover of Al Pacino’s main character and the supposed reason for the bank robbery. Although the portrayal may seem outdated by today’s standards, “DOG DAY AFTERNOON” remains a remarkable film that challenges stereotypes and prejudices against LGBTQ+ individuals. Watch the trailer
Tuesday, 23 January, 8:00 pm
GAINSBOURG – DER MANN, DER FRAUEN LIEBTE
Film Series “Queering Jewishness – Jewish Queerness“
FR/USA 2010. Dir: Joann Sfar. Cast: Eric Elmosnino, Lucy Gordon. 121 mins. 35mm. Original version with German subtitles.
The DFG-funded research project “Queering Jewishness – Jewish Queerness. Discursive Staging of Gender and ‘Jewish Difference'” examines the mutual dependencies of mediality, Jewishness, and queerness in graphic, filmic, and televisual images. In January, the project presents the film GAINSBOURG (VIE HÉROÏQUE) at the DFF cinema, followed by a discussion addressing questions about the portrayal modes of Jewish difference and images of masculinity. The event is held in collaboration with the Institute for Theatre, Film, and Media Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Institute for Media Culture and Theatre at the University of Cologne. More about the event
Friday 26 January, 8:30 pm
THE NOMI SONG
presented by Open Film Club Treppe 41
DE 2004. Dir: Andrew Horn. Music Documentary. 96 mins. 35mm. Original version with German subtitles.
The singer and stage artiste Klaus Nomi was one of the most extraordinary figures in the music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, which was already rich in extraordinary characters. Genre and category boundaries meant nothing to him; the self-taught countertenor sang Baroque opera as masterfully as 1960s pop and New Wave. In the summer of 1983, Klaus Nomi, born Klaus Sperber in 1944 in Immenstadt, Bavaria, died of AIDS. Andrew Horn’s film, released about twenty years after Nomi’s untimely death, revives the self-created myth of Nomi through a mix of musical elements, interviews, and science-fiction scenes, portraying an “otherworldly person” (New York Times) who influenced numerous artists from Anohni to Lady Gaga and worked, among other things, as a backing singer for David Bowie.
At the Caligari FilmBühne in Wiesbaden
19 – 22 January
24. HOMONALE – QUEER FILM FESTIVAL 2024
Film festival in Wiesbaden
The Homonale is the queer film festival of the state capital Wiesbaden, which has been held annually at the traditional Caligari FilmBühne since 2001. The festival features homosexual, bisexual and transgender films of all genres – from dramas to comedies, thrillers and documentaries. Check out the festival program!
Tuseday, 23 January, 8:00 pm
SISI UND ICH
at the Caligari Filmbühne
D/CH/A 2022, Dir: Frauke Finsterwalder, Cast: Sandra Hüller, Susanne Wolff, Stefan Kurt, Angela Winkler, 132 mins. German.
Empress Sisi has reached the second half of her life. Her lady-in-waiting, Countess Irma, finds her surrounded by women in a kind of noble commune in Greece, a universe far removed from the etiquette of the Austrian court. Sisi lives in absolute freedom, where neither her children nor her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, matter. The important thing is to avoid boredom and to allow the Empress to set the rules of the game. Irma is immediately fascinated by the formidable yet self-destructive Sisi. She falls head over heels in love with the free and uninhibited empress, and ultimately supports her in a fateful decision.
Online
Conversation (in German)
Film scholars Karola Gramann and Heide Schlüpmann about MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM
In conjunction with WEIMAR WEIBLICH
This classic of early German sound film, and revered as a lesbian cult film, features an all-female cast and two women in key roles behind the camera: Christa Winsloe wrote the screenplay and Leontine Sagan directed. After the screening, film scholars Karola Gramann and Heide Schlüpmann talked about the history of the film’s reception, its personal significance for them, and about a wonderful interview they conducted with lead actress Hertha Thiele in the early 1980s. More…
Podcast (in German)
Das Homosexuellen-Melodram ANDERS ALS DIE ANDERN
In conjunction with WEIMAR WEIBLICH
Richard Oswald’s “ANDERS ALS DIE ANDERN” (GER 1919) was the first film to address homosexuality and Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexuality. Film scholar Wolfgang Theis talks about the educational film, starring Conrad Veidt, which was not only a box office hit but also faced homophobic attacks. More…
Podcast (in German)
Queere Mutterschaft
In conjunction with WEIMAR WEIBLICH
In the podcast conversation with the Berlin artist Annette Hollywood, one of the topics is why lesbian mothers are rarely mentioned in history, and when they are, it’s often in criminal contexts. Additionally, Annette Hollywood introduces her video project, “anderkawer,” which explores the traces of queer motherhood. A video from this project is also on display in the foyer of the WEIMAR WEIBLICH exhibition. More…
Lecture (in English)
2001: A QUEER FUTURE
International Kubrick Symposium 2018
Will the future be gender-fluid, characterized by an unspecified and changing gender? In this 2018 lecture, cultural historian Dominic Janes emphasized that Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” can also be interpreted as a queer odyssey. More…
RHIZOM Filmgeschichte
QUEER CINEMA
Focus
The platform RHIZOM FILMGESCHICHTE explores the beginnings of films. In the thematic path “QUEER CINEMA – Counter-Narratives and Cinematic Experiments,” Karin Michalski writes about an explicitly political phenomenon that does not adhere to well-defined identities but rather subverts, confuses, and expands normative societal concepts of identity. More…
Online-Talk (in German)
OUTING IN DER FAMILIE
Influential Films and Cinema
On the occasion of the Queer Action Days 2022, Olaf Wehowski (LUCAS – International Festival for Young Film Lovers, DFF) spoke with Ioannis Karathanasis (Association of Binational Families and Partnerships) and Josefine Liebig (Alliance for Acceptance and Diversity Frankfurt) about films on the topic of coming out within the family. More…
