Rosa von Praunheim
Germany
A widely and internationally acclaimed film director and author, Rosa von Praunheim (1942-2025) is considered one of the most important representatives of postmodern German cinema and a pioneer of the political gay and lesbian movement in the Federal Republic of Germany. Over the course of more than 50 years, he directed more than 150 films. Born as Holger Mischwitzky in 1942 in Riga, Latvia, he grew up in Frankfurt and lived in Berlin since the mid-1960s. Starting in 1970, he directed films such as "The Bed Sausage", which remains a cult classic to this day, and "It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Society in which He Lives", with which he founded the new German gay movement. In 2013 he was awarded the Berlinale Camera in the Berlin International Film Festival.