This event is part of the Goethe-Institut New York's "Queer as German Folk" series, with which we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots as a milestone in the fight for gender diversity and equality.
"Queer as German Folk" is a project of the Goethe-Instituts North America in cooperation with the Schwules Museum Berlin, and the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung).
Realized in cooperation with The DC Center for the LGBT Community, The Rainbow History Project, and Whitman-Walker Health.
#queerasgermanfolk #qagf #stonewall50 #smu #bpb
As a part of the Goethe-Institut North America’s „Queer as German Folk“ series – in which we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn Uprising as a milestone in the fight for gender diversity and equality – the Goethe-Institut Washington and its many local project partners have selected a number of culturally- and historically-significant films from Germany and North America, highlighting various aspects of queer rights movements. We present Kino-Q, a film series that guides viewers through parts of this history, paired with expert-led discussions.
The AIDS Trilogy, Pt. II: Positive (Positiv) (1990), dir. Rosa von Praunheim
Federal Republic of Germany and United States, 1990, 76 min., in English.
Directed by Rosa von Praunheim.
From the encouragement of an intimate self-help group, to the political mobilization of the militant AIDS action group ACT UP, the sufferers of HIV in Positive have the courage to denounce the restrictive and ignorant stalling tactics of the state and the city under the aegis of US President Ronald Reagan and New York City mayor Ed Koch, who provided only $25,000 for sex education, condom advertisements, and medical and social help in the first few years of the AIDS crisis.
Positive – HIV-positive, to be precise – describes most of the New Yorkers, whom Rosa von Praunheim interviewed in this documentary about how they managed life with AIDS. But positive also refers to a mental outlook that does not surrender to one’s own dismay. Throughout The AIDS Trilogy the interviewees are portrayed as members of a resistance movement that rebels against the supposed fatality of the illness from which they suffer.
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Following the film we are pleased to be joined by Peer Support Program Coordinator from Whitman-Walker Health Michael Mitchell and Director of Treatment for NMAC Moisés Agosto-Rosario, who will both talk about their experiences working with the LGBT community in DC.
Michael Mitchell started his career STOP AIDS Chicago doing HIV/AIDS prevention/education in 1991, and moved to New York not long after where he was deeply involved with Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) in their education department, where volunteered leading all of their educational programs and where he helped create and lead the first HIV- support groups, something that was unheard of at the time. Mitchell also was a participant in Project ACHIEVE, a preventative HIV vaccine trial), chairing the Community Advisory Board for the NY Blood Center (the study site in NYC), and was a member of the national CAB for the entire study. He was co-creator and executive director of the Gay/Lesbian American Music Awards; its Michael Callen Medial of Achievement was named for the noted AIDS activist and musician. Says Mitchell, “I saw the devastation to our community firsthand – and I witnessed great resilience, creativity, and love in the face of it.”
Moisés Agosto-Rosario is a longtime treatment advocate and educator for people living with HIV/AIDS. A frequent public speaker and writer in both English and Spanish, Moisés has played a crucial role in ensuring that communities of color have equal access to care, treatment, and lifesaving information and has won numerous awards for his work with the HIV community. He is currently the Director of Treatment for NMAC (formerly known as the National Minority AIDS Council). Before joining NMAC, he worked as program manager for the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) with the HIV Collaborative Fund for HIV Treatment Preparedness, a project of the Tides Foundation. In this role, he was responsible for the grant making activities in Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Africa. Previous to ITPC he served as the Vice President and Managing Director for Community Access, a Nelson Communications Company and member of the Publicis Healthcare Group. Moisés served as the editor of SIDA Ahora, the Spanish publication of the People with AIDS Coalition of New York, and was an active member of ACT UP NY. Moisés graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras with a B.A. in Literature and Education.
Director
Rosa von Praunheim was born in Riga, Latvia, during the Nazi occupation of the Baltic States in 1942. He was born in a Latvian prison where his mother, Edith Radtke, was being held captive. When his mother was murdered by Nazi doctors in a Berlin psychiatric hospital, von Praunheim was adopted and christened Holger Bernhard Bruno Waldemar Mischwitzky. Initially an East Berliner, von Praunheim’s family escaped into West Germany in 1953. He began working in film and creative writing in the 1960, at which point he chose “Rosa von Praunheim” as his stage name. In 1971, he released his groundbreaking documentary,
It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives, which prompted the founding of several gay rights groups throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A prolific documentarian and feature film director, von Praunheim regularly pushed the envelope across genres, and closely examined activism, the AIDS crisis, societal norms, and shifting social dynamics within queer communities. An eccentric and at times controversial filmmaker, von Praunheim continues to work and live in Berlin.
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