City of Lost Souls (1983 film)

Last updated
City of Lost Souls
City of Lost Souls film poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Rosa von Praunheim
Written byRosa von Praunheim
Screenplay byRosa von Praunheim
Produced byRosa von Praunheim
Starring
CinematographyStephan Köster
Music byHolger Münzer
Country West Germany
Languages
  • German
  • English

City of Lost Souls (German : Stadt Der Verlorenen Seelen) is a 1983 German musical film directed by Rosa von Praunheim and performed by drag queens, travesty artists and transgender people. The film received international attention and became a cult movie beyond the LGBT community. [1]

Contents

Plot

City of Lost Souls is a primarily fictional narrative about the lives of US cabaret performers and other immigrants in Berlin. The performers struggle for social recognition and professional prospects, bringing autobiographical and authentic aspects of their biographies and life experiences into the plot. [2]

Awards

Reception

In the context of the time, the transgender film was praised as revolutionary: "This riotous and massively ahead-of-its-time intersectional queer-punk musical has gone on to greatly influence transgender politics." (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) [4] Phil Ieropoulos, Professor of Directing at Buckinghamshire New University, wrote in a treatise on art films: "Featuring trans and genderqueer characters and drag superstars of the era, but also a bizarre structure that alternates between interviews, voice-overs, songs and performance art, City of Lost Souls is one of the coolest films you'll ever see." [5] "[...] Praunheim succeeds in creating a space in which transgender women and sexual pluralism are celebrated without violence or rebuke." (Another Gaze Film Journal) [6] "This 1983 trans punk musical is the instant cult classic [...]". (Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art) [7]

Notes

  1. "STADT DER VERLORENEN SEELEN". Mubi. Retrieved 2022-04-26.
  2. "Rosa von Praunheim: The City of Lost Souls". Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof. Retrieved 2022-04-26.
  3. "Rosa von Praunheim - Awards". Internet Movie Database . Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  4. "City of Lost Souls". Australian Centre for the Moving Image . September 2022. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
  5. "Phil Ieropoulos selects 50 important works of experimental and queer cinema and video". Phil Ieropoulos - Athinorama. 28 January 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  6. "Reconceiving Trans Womanhood And Sexual Pluralism In Rosa Von Praunheim's 'City Of Lost Souls'". Another Gaze Film Journal. 9 April 2020. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  7. "City of Lost Souls (1983)". Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 2019. Retrieved 2022-04-27.

Related Research Articles

"New queer cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Sea</span> American filmmaker, actor, and musician

Daniel Sea is an American filmmaker, actor and musician. They rose to prominence through their role as Max Sweeney on Showtime's drama series The L Word. Sea (he/they) is a trans non-binary actor, musician and artist who has worked in film, theater, TV, and the fine arts. They played the first recurring transmasculine role on television, appearing from 2006-2009 as Max in Showtime's The L Word. In 2022, they revised the role as Max for the current iteration of the L Word: Generation Q. They acted in films such as John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, and Barbara Albert's film The Dead and the Living.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosa von Praunheim</span> German film director

Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky, known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In over 50 years, von Praunheim has made more than 150 films. His works influenced the development of LGBTQ+ rights movements worldwide.

<i>I Am My Own Woman</i> 1992 German film

I Am My Own Woman is a 1992 German semi-documentarian film directed by Rosa von Praunheim. The film attracted international attention and was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival in 1993, for example.

<i>It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives</i> 1971 German film

It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives is a 1971 German avant-garde film directed by Rosa von Praunheim.

<i>Neurosia: 50 Years of Perversity</i> 1995 German film

Neurosia: 50 Years of Perversity is a 1995 German film directed by Rosa von Praunheim.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+(LGBTQ+)music is music that focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities as a product of the broad gay liberation movement.

<i>Positive</i> (1990 film) 1990 American film

Positive is a 1990 documentary film directed, written and produced by Rosa von Praunheim. The film received international resonance.

<i>Silence = Death</i> (film) 1990 American documentary film

Silence = Death is a 1990 documentary film directed, written, and produced by Rosa von Praunheim. The film received international resonance.

<i>Tally Brown, New York</i> 1979 film by Rosa von Praunheim

Tally Brown, New York is a 1979 documentary film directed, written and produced by Rosa von Praunheim, centring around the career of Tally Brown.

<i>A Virus Knows No Morals</i> 1986 film

A Virus Knows No Morals is a 1986 German film directed, written and produced by Rosa von Praunheim. It was one of the first feature films about AIDS worldwide.

<i>Army of Lovers or Revolt of the Perverts</i> 1979 film

Army of Lovers or Revolt of the Perverts is a 1979 German documentary film directed by Rosa von Praunheim.

<i>Horror Vacui</i> (film) 1984 film

Horror Vacui (German: Horror Vacui - Die Angst vor der Leere) is a 1984 German avant-garde film directed by Rosa von Praunheim.

<i>Red Love</i> (1982 film) 1982 film

Red Love is a 1982 German film directed by Rosa von Praunheim.

Sean Dorsey is an Emmy Award-winning transgender and queer choreographer, dancer, writer and trans rights activist. He is widely recognized as the United States' first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. Dorsey founded his San Francisco-based dance company Sean Dorsey Dance, which incorporates transgender and LGBTQ+ themes into all of their works and has toured to more than 30 cities internationally. Along with creating a dance company, Dorsey is also the founder and artistic director of Fresh Meat Productions. Founded in 2002, Fresh Meat Productions is a non-profit organization that invests in the creative expression and cultural leadership of transgender and gender-nonconforming communities. Fresh Meat Productions creates and commissions new work, presents performing arts programs, conducts education and engagement, and advocates for justice and equity in the Arts. The organization is well known for its annual Fresh Meat Festival in San Francisco, an annual festival of transgender and queer performance.

The Transexual Menace, or The Menace, was a transgender rights activist organization founded in New York City in 1993. It was the first direct action group of its kind, and grew to be a national organisation with 24 chapters.

Mel "Angie Stardust" Michaels was a singer, actress, and drag artist of the 1950s and 1960s and the first black star of New York's Club 82. She was also the manager of Hamburg, Germany's first all-male strip club, Crazy Boys, and was the founder and proprietor of Angie's Nightclub in Schmidts Tivoli Theatre.

Queer art, also known as LGBT+ art or queer aesthetics, broadly refers to modern and contemporary visual art practices that draw on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and various non-heterosexual, non-cisgender imagery and issues. While by definition there can be no singular "queer art", contemporary artists who identify their practices as queer often call upon "utopian and dystopian alternatives to the ordinary, adopt outlaw stances, embrace criminality and opacity, and forge unprecedented kinships and relationships." Queer art is also occasionally very much about sex and the embracing of unauthorised desires.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joaquín La Habana</span> Cuban dancer, singer and performer

Joaquín La Habana is a queer singer, dancer, actor and drag artist.

References