For this week’s film tip, we would like to recommend a new exhibition on movies rather than one specific film, simply because it is quite remarkable in its execution.

„Inventing Queer Cinema“ is an exhibition and film programme running at the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin until 13 September 2026.

As the name suggests, the exhibition explores queer cinema in all its aspects – from its very beginnings and key figures to its role in today’s cinematic landscape. Importantly, the Deutsche Kinemathek does not claim completeness in presenting queer cinema and its invention. Instead, it emphasises that this history should be understood as an ongoing process that continues to evolve today. The exhibition takes place in the vast halls of a former electrical substation and includes a textile archive featuring original costume pieces such as Marlene Dietrich’s iconic top hat and cigarette case. Special tribute is paid to Manfred Salzgeber, a film distributor who spent a lifetime advocating for queer rights and bringing queer stories to cinema screens across Germany and beyond.

A timeline documents and highlights key moments in the evolution of queer cinema history: from the world’s first explicit homosexual film, „Anders als die Andern“ by Richard Oswald in 1919, to the first lesbian kiss in a Hollywood film in „Morocco“ (1930), and the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. Films such as Westler and Zimmer 303 demonstrate cinematically how deeply the epidemic affected the gay community.

Paragraph 175, which criminalised homosexual acts, was only abolished in 1994 (!), followed 22 years later by the first Academy Award for a queer film, „Moonlight“.

The timeline concludes with studies indicating a decline in LGBTQ representation in US films due to a political backlash against diversity in 2025/26.

Three huge screens positioned side by side show excerpts from a wide range of films connected to queer history, creating an all-encompassing experience. Combined with hanging posters, information boards, quotations and portraits suspended from the ceiling, the exhibition’s curation conveys queer cinema’s quiet omnipresence. Once inside, you do not know where to look or what to read first, and slowly realise just how much there is – and has always been – just beyond the boundaries of mainstream attention.

„Inventing Queer Cinema“ successfully highlights the hopes, struggles and achievements of actors, film distributors and directors such as Chussein Erkenow, who personally smuggled his film „100 Tage, Genosse Soldat“ by train from Moscow to Germany after it had been strictly banned in Russia.

The exhibition impressively showcases the resilience of queer figures, while also revealing the beauty that can emerge from pain and hardship, leading to such special movies.

The Deutsche Kinemathek also has a studio cinema at its disposal, screening a variety of queer films daily as part of the exhibition.

The weekly corresponding programme can be found here.

 

Tokyo, 1936: Sada Abe, a former prostitute, suffocates her lover during sex and, in order to finally possess him and his sexuality entirely, cuts off his genitals. At her arrest a couple of days later, his penis was still found in her kimono. It was a crime that shook the whole country.

Shocking to most, the case became the inspiration for the defining work of Nagisa Oshima. The director is known as one of the most infamous figures of the Japanese New Wave. He wrote and directed „Im Reich der Sinne“ (In the Realm of the Senses), a film that tells the brutally fascinating story of this couple.

Sada Abe begins a new job as a housemaid for Kichizō Ishida, with whom she quickly starts an affair. At first, she still shares him with his wife, but Sada soon claims sole ownership over Kichizō and his body. Plot-wise, this is mostly it: over the span of 105 minutes, the viewer is confronted with countless (unsimulated!) sex scenes, which become almost metaphorical through their excessive repetition.

What changes is the dynamic. Sada’s complete dedication to her employer initially feels almost upsetting from a feminist perspective, as her portrayal quickly shifts into that of an insatiably aroused nymphomaniac. Kichizō seems amused by it at first. But he soon becomes completely captivated by her as she demands his promise to sleep exclusively with her, and the two begin testing sexual boundaries by choking each other during the act. It is here that the dynamic shifts entirely, and he becomes nothing more than a willing surrender to her desires.

Isolated and unconcerned with the rest of the world, the two spiral deeper and deeper into a space of obsession, ownership, freedom and pain in such a radical manner that it eventually becomes almost claustrophobic to watch.

The traditional Japanese clothing of the period, paired with Minoru Miki’s beautifully composed score, creates a captivating cultural contrast to the horrors unfolding on screen.

„Im Reich der Sinne“ had to be cut and edited further in France, as no Japanese film laboratory dared to work with material this explicit. At its first screening at the Berlinale in 1976, the film was immediately confiscated. After careful investigation, it was ultimately not deemed pornography and was screened again in 1977.

Often misunderstood, a restored version of the film is now being shown in German cinemas to mark its 50th anniversary.

Whether it is a good film or not, what remains revolutionary, then and now, is Oshima’s insistence on portraying desire as a radical act in itself. With a movie that probably contains more sex scenes than almost any other, he paradoxically manages to depict sex in a non-sexual way, instead using it to explore the concepts of desire and the point at which love meets morbid obsession.

„Im Reich der Sinne“ will be screened in German cinemas from 11 June.

Tabatha lives on her ranch in the heart of the Badlands, the vast plains of South Dakota. Despite financial difficulties, she welcomes rebellious teenagers and shares her passion for horses with them, offering them more than just a home. Together, they train the horses, teaching them the magic and grace of rodeo. She describes it as “reinventing the American West.” Things get tumultuous when a rancher from a neighboring county offers to buy Tabatha’s ranch.

The film’s synopsis is captivating to begin with, accompanied by beautiful shots of America’s vast, open landscapes. What makes it even more compelling is how close it is to reality: five of the actors, including the main characters, play themselves on their very own horse ranch.

Director Kate Beecroft, perhaps known for „As Long as You Are Mine“ or „6 Underground“, found the story by accident. She and Austin Shelton, a friend and director of photography, were on a road trip in a van, searching for an inspiring subject. After taking a wrong turn in South Dakota, they met a woman who told them about Tabatha Zimiga and invited them to visit her ranch. They went – and what followed was a three-year-long period of research and immersion.

Beecroft lived with the family, observing their daily lives and teaching them how to act. Despite some performance experience through rodeo riding, they had no formal acting background, yet deliver remarkably convincing performances in the film. Beecroft also brought in professional actors alongside non-professionals, creating a unique dynamic on set that even led to improvised scenes.

The result is a magical film, suspended somewhere between reality and fiction, portraying the quiet resilience of women by deeply intertwining their lives with animals and nature.

The New West (East of Wall) will be released in German cinemas on 4 June 2026.

Opening the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma marks Jane Schoenbrun’s return to the terrain: adolescence as horror mythology, movies as emotional habitat where there are endless fried chicken and candy. The film observes how identity is something performed through cultural debris rather than discovered naturally – the question of whether that has always been like that remains open. The film follows Kris, played by Hannah Einbinder, a filmmaker attempting to resurrect the long-abandoned Camp Miasma slasher franchise, where Little Dead butchers teenagers in the woods. Kris is eager to find Billy Presley, the Camp Miasma series’ original “final girl,” portrayed by Gillian Anderson. Billy is an eerie combination of sexiness, detachment and exhaustion.

Anderson is wonderfully in her element, eccentric, impeccably stylish, and sharp with a mischievous smile. Billy lives at Camp Miasma, where the final movie was shot. She moves through the film like the opposite (or alter ego) of Kris, whispering to her to stop intellectualizing herself into paralysis. Camp Miasma is simple, she says, it’s all about “flesh and fluid”.

It turns out Schoenbrun/Kris is not interested in reviving slasher iconography nostalgically. The genre becomes a framework through which to explore queer longing, aging, bodily alienation, and the strange violence of acute self-awareness. The film with its modernized trash aesthetics is on point. Fluorescent junk food, VHS textures, candy wrappers, processed colors: companions to teenage desires and fantasies.

Schoenbrun joyfully pushes the boundaries into the kitsch and grindhouse aesthetics making their second Cannes appearance very enjoyable and worth watching.
Oh and, that Arthur Conti: why is he so good at playing those mysterious freaks?

 

The film will be released theatrically in Germany in August.

Numéro Berlin is happy to announce the digital premiere of short movie „Touch“.

Synopsis for the experimental dance piece is the feeling of being stuck in the space between becoming someone and evolving or staying in place, forcefully reduced to immanence: „At birth, a woman exists between transcendence and immanence.“. Body and soul seem to split during this moment.

The fruitful collaboration between choreographer Juliann McCandless and photographer Jenn Kang reveals the underlying unity of the contraries through movement. The body does not remain as a simple object or a solitary entity, it holds memory, sensation and shared humanity. It becomes a vessel for a collective consciousness and has the whole community moving for the closing shot.  

Portrayed is a somatic study of the internal and the external – a journey moving from a singular, isolated navigation of the self towards a mirrored integration with the collective. In a world that feels increasingly lonely, Jenn Kang and Juliann McCandless have just restored our hope in human community with this beautiful movie. 

 

 

CREDITS 

Jenn Kang, Juliann McCandless
Director

Juliann McCandless
Writer

Jenn Kang at Touch Publishing
Producer

Juliann McCandless
Julie Rust
Joshua Fernandez
Maggie Fox
Ivan Karpukhin
Daliana Lopez
Andre Michael
Noellie Nemoto
Autumn Strittmater
Olivia Bell
Dancers

Juliann McCandless
Choreographer

070 Shake, Johan Lenox
Original Score

Grant Duncan
Director of Photography

Amanda Grossman
Assistant Director

Juliana Bassi
Wardrobe

Danielle Haxton, Chelsea Orduño
Hair and Makeup

Amanda Grossman
Editor

Alex Foster
Gaffer

Sean Kang, Tristan Ngyuen
Production Assistants

While war is taking place on the western front, has Ramsden choir in Yorkshire lost most of their men to the army. Dedicated to keeping the Choir alive, they decide to recruit new young locals. Alongside the Choir member, they need a new Choir director and despite the suspicion that he is holding onto a secret, their best bet seems to be Dr. Henry Guthrie. Played by the talented Ralph Fiennes. A driven and uncompromising character, that has recently returned from a career in Germany. 

Set in 1915, The Choral takes place in the middle of the First World War. It’s old fashioned in the best ways. A charming and beautiful period piece which reminds us that music, especially during difficult times, offers not only solace, but a sense of community and profound hope. 

The backdrop of the film is particularly well made and the era is brought to life with meticulous detail. With smoke from cobblestone houses and top hats for the bold aristocrats. The aesthetics of the film is incredibly executed, and pulls you right in. Thanks to Production designer Peter Francois and Costume designer Jenny Beaven. And overall applause to the art department on this film! 

Watch in German theaters from April 9th.

The Drama is a dark romantic comedy that takes the journey of a happily engaged couple completely off the rails. Written and Directed by Kristoffer Borgli, known for his extreme characterisation of modern culture. Surreal premises and the gradual suspenseful escalations of his films, from realistic to absurd scenarios. The Drama is nothing short of that. 

Despite the absurd atmosphere of Borgli’s films, the cinematography is always beautiful, simple and grounded in reality, in contrast to the surreal action happening. This contrast makes for a unique and contradicting experience, making you doubt your initial feelings and engaging you into the story as they start doubting each other.

The humor comes from discomfort, tension and psychological irony. Following the characters go through humiliation and self-destructive behavior, makes you cringe, nervous and laugh. The Drama makes for an unforgettable date night at the cinema! 

Watch it in German theaters from 2. April.