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The Battle of Tuntenhaus

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The Battle of Tuntenhaus is a 1991 documentary film directed by Juliet Bashore. The documentary follows the inhabitants of the Tuntenhaus ("house of queers") a gay and drag queen squat on Mainzer Strasse in East Berlin.

The Battle of Tuntenhaus
Directed byJuliet Bashore
Release date
  • 1991 (1991)
Running time
45 minutes
CountryGermany
LanguageGerman
Tuntenhaus squatters on the balcony of Tuntenhaus Forellenhof at MainzerStrasse 4, summer 1990. From left: Lars, Paula, Louis, Pünktchen & Mutti (Basti).

Synopsis

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The first part of the documentary introduces the Tuntenhaus ("house of queers") – a gay and radical drag queen squat on Mainzer Strasse in East Berlin, in 1990; the occupation is one of many on the street, which was known as a "hotbed of revolutionary and anti-fascist activity." The film follows the inhabitants as they go about their daily lives: communal dinners, love relationships, fortifying the squat against Nazi attack. The squatters face ongoing violence from neo-Nazi gangs, and are evicted by West German police in November 1990 as part of the Battle of Mainzer Strasse. In part two of the documentary, two years later, Bashore revisits some of the locations and interviews some of the former squatters again.

Production

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The Tuntenhaus was a gay and drag queen squat occupied at Mainzer Strasse 4 in East Berlin following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990.[1][2][3] The documentary depicts life in the Tuntenhaus. It was directed by Juliet Bashore for British Broadcaster Channel 4.[4][5][6][7] Part one is 25 minutes long and part two is 20 minutes.[8]

Critical reception and legacy

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Critic Kevin Thomas, writing for The Los Angeles Times in 1992, called The Battle of Tuntenhaus "a tender, angry account."[9] Die Tageszeitung, writing in 2022, said "The Battle of Tuntenhaus is about left-wing dreams and utopias and how they burst" and called the film "a wonderful contemporary document about Berlin shortly after reunification and the autonomous squatter scene, and above all about queer people who tried to create their very own ecosystem."[10]

The Battle of Tuntenhaus has been discussed as an important documentation of radical queer history and as a unique artifact of autonomous and squatter movements.[11][12][13] The Tuntenhaus itself was recreated as a squat on Kastanienallee and later legalized.[7][3]

A 2022–2023 installation at the Schwules Museum in Berlin,[14] curated by Bastian Krondorfer, featured sequences from The Battle of Tuntenhaus throughout the exhibit, and included a life-sized simulacrum of the squat recreated by installation designer Bri Schlögel, based on scenes from the film.[15] The Exberliner reported that the documentary was also screened at the open air cinema in Friedrichshain.[16]

References

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  1. ^ "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof". Mainzer Strasse (in German). 2016-03-09. Archived from the original on 2023-10-19. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  2. ^ "Adventures in Communism". Imaginations. 2017-05-21. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  3. ^ a b Seeliger, Martin; Robin, Guillaume (1 June 2022). "Le Berlin des années 1990 : quand les "rats queer" créèrent la Maison des Tantes et trainèrent dans la boue le conformisme gay". Allemagne d'aujourd'hui. 240 (2): 93–102. doi:10.3917/all.240.0093. S2CID 249534889.
  4. ^ Hartmann, Andreas (2021-08-07). "Kinotipp der Woche: Richtig gute Filme". Die Tageszeitung: taz (in German). ISSN 0931-9085. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
  5. ^ "The Battle of Tuntenhaus". Queerzone3000. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  6. ^ Crasshole, Walter (2022-10-19). "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof 1990: The most anarchic summer Friedrichshain has ever seen". Exberliner. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  7. ^ a b Sandler, Daniela (2016-12-15). Counterpreservation: Architectural Decay in Berlin since 1989. Cornell University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-5017-0680-6. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-10-01.
  8. ^ Vasudevan, Alexander (2023-01-03). The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-83976-793-7. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-10-01.
  9. ^ Thomas, Kevin (1992-06-22). "TV Reviews : Gay-Lesbian Programs Scheduled by KCET". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
  10. ^ Hartmann, Andreas (2021-08-07). "Kinotipp der Woche: Richtig gute Filme". Die Tageszeitung: taz (in German). ISSN 0931-9085. Retrieved 2023-10-06.
  11. ^ Beachy, Robert (2015-10-13). Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-47313-4. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-10-01.
  12. ^ Brockmann, Stephen (2023-06-20). The Freest Country in the World: East Germany's Final Year in Culture and Memory. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-64014-154-4. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-10-01.
  13. ^ Deycke, Alexander; Gmeiner, Jens; Schenke, Julian; Micus, Matthias (2021-01-18). Von der KPD zu den Post-Autonomen: Orientierungen im Feld der radikalen Linken (in German). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-647-31099-2. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-10-01.
  14. ^ "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof 1990: Der kurze Sommer des schwulen Kommunismus". SMU (in German). Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-10-02.
  15. ^ "Ausstellung "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof" im Schwulen Museum : Ein Sommer der Freiheit". Der Tagesspiegel Online (in German). ISSN 1865-2263. Archived from the original on 2023-11-04. Retrieved 2023-10-02.
  16. ^ Crasshole, Walter (2022-10-19). "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof 1990: The most anarchic summer Friedrichshain has ever seen". Exberliner. Archived from the original on 2023-10-14. Retrieved 2023-09-30.
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