Film: Marta and Hilda & Can I Be Your Bratwurst, Please?

(English version with German subtitles & Original English version) and discussion with director Rosa von Praunheim and guests

In Marta and Hilda, Rosa von Praunheim explores the relationship between Marta Feuchtwanger and Hilda Waldo after Lion Feuchtwanger’s death. Both had devoted their lives to his work and were thus confronted with special challenges when he was gone. In Can I Be Your Bratwurst, Please?,  created for the series “Erotic Tales,” by Regina Ziegler, Rosa von Praunheim toys with California’s beauty craze. A stranger from the Midwest comes to Hollywood, rents a room in a motel, and becomes a fanciful treat for all the motel guests. Both films were made during von Praunheim’s fellowship at the Villa Aurora, in 1998. Screening to be followed by Q & A with Rosa von Praunheim and guests.

Rosa von Praunheim (born as Holger Radtke in Riga, 1942) is a key representative of postmodern German film. In the 1960s his debut experimental and short films, such as Samuel Beckett (1969), and Schwestern der Revolution (1969) (Sisters of the Revolution) achieved immediate acclaim. With his 1970 documentary Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt (It’s Not the Homosexual Who’s Perverse, It’s the Society in which He Lives), von Praunheim become an icon of the gay movement in Germany. Among his accolades are the German Film Award (1979), the First Steps Honorary Award (2013), and the Special Teddy Award (2014). In March 2015 von Praunheim was awarded the German Order of Merit.