In West Berlin in the 1960s it was possible to nd bars where men could be le to themselves – a fact that was to turn the city into a magnet for young gay men. The protagonists of this lm, all s ll ac ve members of the community today, recall those ear- ly years in the city. Theirs are memories of a com- munity that fought steadily for its existence and for change, right up to the fall of the Wall. Faced with considerable social repression in the 1970s, a col- lec ve gay iden ty began to emerge, and the ‘West Berlin homosexual campaign’ called for the aboli on of paragraph 175 and the overthrow of patriarchy. Ruined buildings become the venues for new ways of living together such as all-male communes or the ‘queer house’. Co aging, East-West a airs, leather bars, drag performances in the subway – an anarchic kind of joy outshines past su ering. A decade later, AIDS was to hit Berlin. A er Out in Ost-Berlin (Out In East Berlin) Jochen Hick explores queer lifestyles in the West of the city and the roots of a fascina on that the metropolis s ll holds as a refuge – and not just for gay men. A fascina ng journey through me featuring previously unpublished archive material.
