LEGACIES OF RESISTANCE

Curators: Walter Crasshole, Jurgen Bruning

Explicitly queer cinema has always dealt with sexualities but through its decades-long history, these films have one other thing in common: they champion a culture of resistance. Resistance against normative sexualities, the patriarchal hegemony, capitalism… queer cinema has rebelled against many forms of oppression over the years and will continue to resist new forms in the future. Pornfilmfestival Berlin curators Jürgen Brüning and Walter Crasshole present a program of films from their own contexts that reflect this legacy.

Cheryl Dunye is one of the premiere filmmakers of New Queer Cinema and is also notable as the first Black lesbian feature filmmaker. The American director’s career launched with the iconic The Watermelon Woman in 1996, for which she won the Berlinale’s queer prize, The Teddy, that same year, but in 2012 she set her sights on gender fluidity, new relationship models, mommy complexes and sexual Babylon Berlin. When Berliner lesbian couple Dylan and Claudia take some time apart, Dylan’s mother decides it’s time to pay a visit, both for her daughter and for herself. A hilarious sex comedy of gender play and mistaken identity ensues, ultimately questioning what relationship models look like, what gender dynamics inside and outside of a relationship look like and just how close one can get to one’s mother.