As a ten-year-old, I drew comics, collected magazines of desert landscapes and assembled them into fantastic collages. My introduction to film was from my uncle. He had a 16mm camera that he used to film customs and habits in Hessian villages. He took me along on some of his later excursions in the 1960s.
After German studies, psychology, and pedagogics at the University of Marburg, I decided on film. In 1979, two friends, Maria Wismeth and Malu Frank, and I founded the art house cinema "Mondpalast" near Limburg. It had 240 seats and lasted till 1985.
In 1984 I made my first 16mm film: "Johnny or the raw meat". It was a purification of the fiction films we showed at the Mondpalast.
From 1987 I programmed for the "mal sehn Kino" in Frankfurt and directed the "Frankfurt Filmschau" festival. I engaged in film politics in the Hessian Filmbureau.
In the 80s I finally got to see pure avant-garde and experimental films in the Städelschule in Frankfurt and later in the Kinothek Asta Nielsen, affecting me deeply. I published in "Frauen und Film", the only feminist film magazine in Europe. Female sexuality was the main subject of my films in the 1990s, which were shot in Super 8 and 16mm. Since 2002, I've been filming digitally. The transition was easy for me. I appreciate the independence that comes with digital cameras, perfect for "Direct Cinema". My present camera is as small as a Super 8.
During stays in Southern Africa (most years since 2002), the USA (2010) and India (2008 and 2012), I shot freely and then edited the material into experimental documentaries back at home.
Now I'm planning two films: an experimental biographical film I've been working on for a long time about a French female painter stranded in Frankfurt who paints male nudes adventurously; and a documentary about the architecture in southern Africa, from the newest back to the mud houses in the Kalahari Desert.
Born Dillenburg in 1951, I've lived and worked in Berlin since 2006.
Film Festivals
Berlinale Forum Expanded 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017; Panorama 2000; Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen 1984, 2012; Viennale 2011; European Media Art Festival Osnabrück 1984; Feminale Köln 1985, 1990, Femme Totale Dortmund 2002; Freiburger Filmforum 2012, Dokumentarfilmfest München 2000; Internationale Filmfestspiele Mannheim 2000; Sao Paulo International Film Festival 2001; Africa Alive Frankfurt 2005; Film Festival Amsterdam 1985, International Filmfestival Bilbao 1985, International Kansk Video Festival 2015, International Queer Filmfestival Hamburg 1994, 1996; Lesbian and Gay Filmfestival New York 1991, Sidney Film Festival 2001, Melbourne International Film Festival 1991, Pornfilmfestival Berlin 2007, Guangzhou Internat. Doc. Film Festival 2015, International Kansk Video Festival 2015.
Exhibitions
Galerie Ahmad Rafi, Frankfurt 2005; Botswana National Museum and Art Galery 2005, Maru a Pula 2005, Supa Ngwao Museum Francistown 2005, Khama III Museum, Serowe 2005; Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Herne 2008; Überseemuseum, Bremen 2009; Museum Villa Rot, Burgfrieden-Rot 2015.
Awards
"Hessischer Filmpreis" 1999 for fremd gehen. Gespräche mit meiner Freundin and 2002 for Dumela Ladies, Hessischer Drehbuchpreis 2011. "Ursula" Lesbisch Schwulen Filmfest 1994 for Tausend Küsse an Wanda, "Best Film of the Year" Fetisch Film Festival for Five Sex Rooms und eine Küche.