Daniel, a young man from the provinces come to the city and moves from one gay subculture to the next. His adventures begin on the streets of Berlin, where the shy brunette Daniel meets the blonde Clemens, who invites him home for coffee and offers him a place to stay. Soon Daniel is living with Clemens and believes he has found the love of his life. The two try to imitate a bourgeois marriage and its lifestyle. But after four months of tedium, Daniel is cruised by a rich older man who entices him to move into his villa, where he encounters a group of older gays, pretentious in their appreciations of fine art and classical music, who fawn over him.

Get ready to kick off your Pride month by getting dragged, gays. Because the late great queer cinema legend Rosa von Praunheim has some tea to spill in his 1971 classic IT IS NOT THE HOMOSEXUAL WHO IS PERVERSE, BUT THE SOCIETY IN WHICH HE LIVES… and it’s still piping hot 55 years later.

An all-out assault on the complacency of white gay men, in particular, this film is radical, bold and vicious (but a whole lot of fun, we promise). It also… basically started a revolution. Like for real.

Attacked by German conservatives, progressives and gay activists alike upon release (what other film can say THAT?), the film is credited as conceiving of the idea of homosexuality as a political identity. It also resulted in dozens of gay activism groups forming to the left of older organizations. Many films have been called revolutionary, but this one really truly was: It essentially became the foundational text of the German gay rights movement!

It was also the breakout film from von Praunheim, who would become one if the most influential queer filmmakers, authors and activists in both Germany and the world. From the late 1960s to the early 2020s, von Praunheim made over 150 films (!) that worked to redefine the meaning of queer liberation over and over again. He was an absolute legend, and we just lost him on December 17th of last year. This won’t just be a screening… it will be a celebration of him. -PETER KNEGT

Feat. Pre-show drag performance by VIVICA (alter ego of project artist Vivek Shraya). 

Doors Open 30 Minutes Before Showtime.