To increase the visibility of queer content and simultaneously provide a clearer overview, DFF presents on this page a summary of its events, films, and offerings that address or highlight non-heteronormative themes. We also highlight content that, while not explicitly queer, may have relevant undertones or be of interest to parts of the LGBT*IQA community for other reasons.
It’s worth checking this page regularly, as additional programming may be added at short notice throughout the month.
Films and Events at the DFF Cinema
Sunday 12 November 2023, 1 pm
ICH MÖCHTE KEIN MANN SEIN
Film series “Weimar Weiblich“
DE 1918. D: Ernst Lubitsch, Cast: Ossi Oslwalda, Curt Goetz. 45 mins., DCP. Music version.
The feisty Ossi is a proto-feminist who strives to be the equal of her male friends by playing the occasional poker game, smoking, and downing a glass or four of toddy. When her uncle tells her he’s leaving for a while, Ossi looks forward to a life with even less boundaries. What she doesn’t expect is that Dr. Kersten was hired by her uncle to teach her how to be a lady while he is away. However, she counters the attempts at education with a daring role change and dresses up in a tuxedo and top hat at a men’s outfitter to visit a nightclub as a man. There she meets the unsuspecting Kersten. The two become close, and after a night of debauchery, they share a kiss. American film scholar Richard McCormick has described the film as an emancipatory cross-dressing narrative that captures “hopes about queering, troubling,and overturning” early Weimar “class, ethnic, and gender hierarchies”.
Sunday, 26. November, 5 pm & Tuesday, 28 November, 8:30 pm
L’immensità
as part of Verso Sud – Festival of Italian Film
IT 2022. D: Emanuele Crialese. Cast: Penélope Cruz, Luana Giuliani, Vincenzo Amato, 97 mins.
L’immensità tells the story of Adri, a trans* boy growing up with his family in 1970s Rome. There is only a vague understanding that Adri is a boy – a fact accepted by his loving but concerned mother Clara, portrayed by Penélope Cruz, but not by his strict and abusive father Felice. The poignant, semi-autobiographical drama is acclaimed director Emanuele Crialese’s first film in 11 years. “The inspiration was my childhood and my story that is being transposed and reinterpreted,” Crialese said of the film. “I tried to find the good interpretation in it. I didn’t want it to be self-referential. I didn’t want to talk about just me. As I try to do with every film I make, I’ve tried to somehow represent in a broader way the topics I really care for like migration. The migration of a soul. That means a transition from one state to another one.” Watch the trailer
tingeltangel – A Cabaret Festival at DFF
3 November 2023, 4 pm – 8pm
Writing Workshop with Elnaz Farahbakhsh
for Jewish LGBT*QIA+ BIPOCs and Allies
This writing workshop will explore the various intersectional perspectives on the so-called Roaring Twenties and the gaps that existed at the time. The workshop is designed for Jewish LGBT*QIA+ BIPOCs and allies. Participants will explore unconventional writing methods together, creating a relaxed space where ease and creativity can flourish. To register, please email events@dff.film with the subject line: Writing Workshop.
3 November, 8:30 pm
Micaela Leon: Tigers, Muses & Jasmin
A revue about nine heroines of the Weimar Republic
The program brings back to life nine famous and infamous trendsetters of the 1920s. Artist Micaela Leon breathes fresh energy into German musical cabaret with wit, elegance and spirit. Her charming and poignant interpretations of Berlin cabaret songs enchant audiences and breathe new life into the Roaring Twenties. Many of the songs on her program were dismissed by the Nazis as “degenerate music,” and nearly all of the women and composers featured were forced into exile or killed during the Third Reich.
Online
Conversation
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
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
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
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…
