The
Bangalore Queer Film Festival BQFF, perhaps the largest film festival to deal with LGBT themes in the south, is a yearly fixture in Bangalore’s cultural calendar and kicks off once again at the
Bhavan! Run entirely by volunteers – a small group of friends – the festival is committed to the circulation of good queer cinema, including films from non-Western locations, films by independent filmmakers, popular cinema that experiments with LGBT concerns, and experimental films that push aesthetic limits. BQFF has brought, and will continue to bring films for and by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and other communities that fall outside the heterosexual norm.
Germany has produced a rich selection of films on this theme and we are happy to present
five superb features at
BQFF 2020.
Different from the Others (Anders als die Andern)
Richard Oswald | 50 min. | 1919
This is the very first German queer film and was released 100 years ago!
Paul Korner is a homosexual musician who falls in love with his protégé Kurt. Unfortunately, the two are seen walking hand in hand by the blackmailer Franz. Though Paul agrees to Franz's demands at first, it gets out of hand and he ends up refusing to pay which has dire consequences for the lovers.
Friendship of Men (Männerfreundschaften)
Rosa von Praunheim | 85 min. | 2016-18
![]()
How gay was Goethe? And what about his contemporaries? Inspired by Robert Tobin's book, Warm Brothers: Queer Theory and the Age of Goethe (2000), the iconic Rosa von Praunheim explores these and other questions in fictional and documentary scenes. His aim, however, is not to pursue dogmatic reinterpretation but, rather, to open new space for thought.
My Wonderful West Berlin (Mein wunderbares West-Berlin)
Jochen Hick | 98 min. | 2016/17
![]()
Germany's infamous Paragraph 175, which had made sexual acts between men a criminal offence since 1872, was only officially repealed in 1994. However, since the 1960s - with West Berlin being the only place where men could at least dance with other men - there had been public locales there, which became a refuge for young gay men from the Federal Republic. Using hitherto unpublished and often provocative archive material, and with support from many contemporary witnesses, Jochen Hick, in this documentary film, is researching the historical development of the gay scene from its antecedents until today.
Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der Freiheit)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder | 124 min. | 1975
A lottery win leads not to financial and emotional freedom but to social captivity, in this wildly cynical classic about love and exploitation by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Casting himself against type, the director plays a suggestible working-class innocent who lets himself be taken advantage of by his new bourgeois boyfriend and his circle of materialistic friends, leading to the kind of resonant misery that only Fassbinder could create. Fox and His Friends is unsparing social commentary, an amusingly pitiless and groundbreaking, if controversial, depiction of a gay community in 1970s West Germany.
Romeos
Sabine Bernardi | 94 min. | 2011
![]()
Handsome 20-year-old Lukas moves to the big city. Full of the zest for life, he meets the macho-driven Fabio, who seems to personify everything he wants to be. The attraction between both gradually develops, but how much are they up to risk for their feelings, when Lucas has to reveal his transgender identity?
For the complete event schedule, including the events at Alliance Francaise on March 7 & 8, please visit
Bangalore Queer Film Festival.
Back