It’s not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Situation in Which He Lives (Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt)

Widely regarded as a founding work of the gay liberation movement in Germany, «It’s not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Situation in Which He» originally greeted with furor and scandal by liberal and conservative establishments alike.

Through a stunning series of tableau-like vignettes narrated by an archly camp voice-over this extraordinary film tells the story of Daniel, a young gay man who moves to Berlin and descends into its homosexual subcultures. Simultaneously a scathing indictment of a homogeneous gay lifestyle structured around perpetual sexual gratification and an attack on the pseudo-bourgeois values of a cultural elite, Rosa von Praunheim’s analysis is as astute as it is complex.

Its radical propositions and final utopian affirmations were as incisive and critically provocative forty years ago as they are astonishingly pertinent to the socio-cultural situation in which we live today.