Inventing Queer Cinema: A Major Exhibition on Queer Cinema

With the exhibition “Inventing Queer Cinema,” the German Film Archive opens a new chapter: at its new location in Berlin’s E-Werk, it dedicates itself for the first time in this form to the history of queer film culture in Germany. The focus is on films and filmmakers who, since the 1970s, have shaped, developed, and continually reinvented queer cinema. It tells a story of resistance, solidarity, and artistic innovation that extends into the present day.

Queer cinema engages with stories, experiences, and the lived realities of queer people. Central are often characters who resist societal norms and expectations, and are thus marked as outsiders. At the same time, queer cinema has always challenged aesthetic conventions and given rise to its own defiant visual languages and modes of storytelling.

Queer Cinema and Social Change

The exhibition not only showcases formative films but also highlights those who, over decades, worked on the visibility of queer film culture. This includes filmmakers as well as festival organizers, film distributors, and other stakeholders who helped build and sustain queer cinema. “Inventing Queer Cinema” asks about their ideas of cinema, about successes and ruptures, about visions and about the conditions for success or failure.

At the same time, the show demonstrates how closely the development of queer cinema is linked to social changes. It becomes clear that queer film culture did not merely react to social and political upheavals, but also helped shape them and exerted influence into the mainstream. A particular focus lies on Berlin as a hub of queer film and subculture, which for decades has been shaped by international artists as well.

Rediscovering Queer Cinema

For the exhibition, the Salzgeber film distributor is opening its extensive archive for the first time. A prologue also points to early examples from the 1910s drawn from the holdings of the German Film Archive. Other sections explore how television has taken up queer topics, amplified them, and made them visible to a broader public.

Accompanying “Inventing Queer Cinema” is a film series at Studiokino and a surrounding program. The exhibition explicitly does not present a complete inventory but rather invites visitors to continually rediscover queer cinema in its diversity.

“Inventing Queer Cinema” is an exhibition by the German Film Archive and the Queer Culture Foundation. It was curated by Björn Koll, with the curatorial team at the German Film Archive including Nils Warnecke, Kristina Jaspers, and Georg Simbeni. The artistic director of the German Film Archive is Heleen Gerritsen. The project is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Queer Culture Foundation.

The exhibition runs from May 7 to September 13, 2026, Thursdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Cinematheque – Halle, Mauerstraße 79, 10117 Berlin. (dd/pm)