The Battle of Tuntenhaus

The Battle of Tuntenhaus
Directed byJuliet Bashore
Produced by
  • Cheryl Farthing
  • Rebecca Dobbs
Cinematography
  • Juliet Bashore
  • Constantine Giannaris
  • Stefan Piwko
Edited by
  • Peter Webber
  • Androu Morgan
  • Melody London
Music by
  • Kevin Mills
  • John Eacott
Production
companies
Release dates
  • 1991 (1991) (Part 1)
  • 1992 (1992) (Part 2)
Running time
45 minutes
CountryGermany
LanguageGerman

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.

Synopsis

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 film documents a small number of residents who agreed to appear on camera, depicting aspects of their daily lives such as communal meals, personal relationships, and preparations against potential Nazi attacks.

The main narrative emphasizes dramatic incidents, including possible confrontations with neo-Nazis, although such clashes did not ultimately occur. One example is a scene in which the occupiers set out for a counter-protest that ultimately proved to be a feint. The squatters are evicted by West German police on 14 November 1990, as part of the Battle of Mainzer Strasse.

In part two of the documentary, a year later, Bashore revisits some of the locations and interviews some of the former squatters again.

Production

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. The focus of the film is closely linked to its production history. Director Juliet Bashore had initially been commissioned by the BBC to produce a documentary about neo-Nazis in the newly reunified Berlin. That project did not achieve the intended results, as the neo-Nazi squatters were less willing to participate on camera.[4][5][6][7]

By contrast, members of the gay squatter community were more open to being filmed, which led to their becoming the central subjects of the documentary. 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

Film critic Kevin Thomas, wrote it is "a tender, angry account of an East Berlin squatters commune created by gays and drag queens that is systematically destroyed and looted by West German military police in the immediate wake of reunification; ironically, Neo-Nazis, who had their own squatters commune nearby, supported reunification as strongly as the inhabitants of Tuntenhaus opposed it."[9]

Die Tageszeitung, said the film "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, alongside video installations by Vinzenz Damm.[15] The Exberliner reported that the documentary was also screened at the open air cinema in Friedrichshain.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Koltermann, Tom (9 March 2016). "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof". Mainzer Strasse (in German). Archived from the original on 19 October 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  2. ^ Smith, Jake P. (20 April 2018). "Adventures in Communism: Counterculture and Camp in East Berlin". Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies. 8 (1): 48–63. doi:10.17742/IMAGE.GDR.8-1.4. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023.
  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. ^ a b Hartmann, Andreas (7 August 2021). "Kinotipp der Woche: Richtig gute Filme". Die Tageszeitung: taz (in German). ISSN 0931-9085. Retrieved 7 October 2023.
  5. ^ a b Queerzone3000 (2016). "The Battle of Tuntenhaus". Queerzone3000. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ a b c Crasshole, Walter (19 October 2022). "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof 1990: The most anarchic summer Friedrichshain has ever seen". Exberliner. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  7. ^ a b c Sandler, Daniela (15 December 2016). Counterpreservation: Architectural Decay in Berlin since 1989. Cornell University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-5017-0680-6. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  8. ^ Vasudevan, Alexander (3 January 2023). The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-83976-793-7. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  9. ^ Thomas, Kevin (22 June 1992). "TV Reviews : Gay-Lesbian Programs Scheduled by KCET". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  10. ^ Hartmann, Andreas (7 August 2021). "Kinotipp der Woche: Richtig gute Filme". Die Tageszeitung: taz (in German). ISSN 0931-9085. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
  11. ^ Beachy, Robert (13 October 2015). Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-47313-4. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  12. ^ Brockmann, Stephen (20 June 2023). 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 14 October 2023. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  13. ^ Deycke, Alexander; Gmeiner, Jens; Schenke, Julian; Micus, Matthias (18 January 2021). 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 14 October 2023. Retrieved 1 October 2023.
  14. ^ "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof 1990: Der kurze Sommer des schwulen Kommunismus". SMU (in German). Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
  15. ^ Demnitz, Jana. "Ausstellung "Tuntenhaus Forellenhof" im Schwulen Museum: Ein Sommer der Freiheit". Der Tagesspiegel Online (in German). ISSN 1865-2263. Archived from the original on 4 November 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
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