Films A to Z
Mein wunderbares West-Berlin
- Runtime:
- 97 min.
- Year of Production:
- 2017
- Country:
- Germany
- Director:
- Production Company:
- Galeria Alaska Productions
- Berlinale Section:
- Panorama
- Berlinale Category:
- Documentary Film
In West Berlin in the 1960s it was possible to find bars where men could be left to themselves – a fact that was to turn the city into a magnet for young gay men. The protagonists of this film, all still active members of the community today, recall those early years in the city. Theirs are memories of a community that fought steadily for its existence, and of its change, right up to the fall of the Wall. Faced with considerable social repression in the 1970s, a collective gay identity began to emerge, and the ‘West Berlin homosexual campaign’ called for the abolition of paragraph 175 and the overthrow of patriarchy. Ruined buildings become the venues for new ways of living together such as all-male communes or the ‘queer house’. Cottaging, East-West affairs, leather bars, drag performances in the subway – an anarchic kind of joy outshines past suffering. A decade later, AIDS was to hit Berlin.
After Out in Ost-Berlin (Out In East Berlin) Jochen Hick explores queer lifestyles in the West of the city and the roots of a fascination that the metropolis still holds as a refuge – and not just for gay men. A fascinating journey through time featuring previously unpublished archive material.
BIOGRAFIE Jochen Hick
Born in Darmstadt, Germany in 1960, he studied film at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg and also in Bologna between 1981 and 1987. He has worked as a freelance writer, journalist, director and producer for film and television. In 1994 he founded his own production company, Galeria Alaska Productions. Between 2007 and 2010 he was editor-in-chief and deputy director of programming at TIMM TV channel. Out in Ost-Berlin – Lesben und Schwule in der DDR (Out in East Berlin – Lesbians and Gays in the GDR) screened in Panorama in 2013, and Der Ost-Komplex (The GDR Complex) in 2016.
FILMOGRAFIE Jochen Hick (selection)
2017 Mein wunderbares West-Berlin
2016 Der Ost-Komplex
2013 Out in Ost-Berlin - Lesben und Schwule in der DDR
2009 The Good American
2008 EAST/WEST - Sex & Politics
2005 Cycles Of Porn - Sex/Life in L.A. - Part 2
2003 Ich kenn keinen – Allein unter Heteros
2000 No One Sleeps
1998 Sex/Life in L.A
1995 Menmaniacs - The Legacy of Leather
1992 Willkommen in Dom
1991 Willkommen im Dom
Jochen Hick IMDb
Website Jochen Hick/Galeria Alaska Productions
Interview with Jochen Hick
Queer Academy Panel with Jochen Hick & Andrea Weiss