Queer Cinema from Germany
Film as Intervention

We all live in countries that react negatively to the majority of their LGBTIQ offspring and often treat them like strangers in their own land. This drives gay, lesbian, and trans people to emigrate, to flee the place they call home, and to forever be the largest displaced group of humankind.

By Wieland Speck

Our patriarchal societies are based on the oppression of all those who do not belong to the dominant group. That group often consists almost exclusively of heterosexual men – though by no means of all.

Potential for Film Programming

The tactic of power to assert itself follows a finely graded perception and action system of disregard and marginalization, which is affirmed in conventional film. At the lower end of the pyramid of domination stand women, genderqueers, the critically minded, the disabled, and people of color.
 
That’s what the theory says. Cultural mediators and cultural creators work to break this power dynamic and in many instances they seem to have prevailed. The longer a society deals with its own power dynamic openly, the sooner it can overcome it. But so far that hasn’t shaken the theory.

The Experience of Diversity

In Germany today, we cultivate a diversity of identities and see diversity as a social experience, or at least we’re on our way there. The promise of social media to support diversity with their generous transparency, however, is thwarted by the increasingly radical abuse of diversity as a tool for exclusion. In a fascist regime, today’s transparency would destroy the (almost achieved) diversity of equal rights.
 
This is what the Goethe-Institut experiences when supporting queer film festivals and other emancipatory activities. It all comes down to equal rights.