Baldiga – Entsichertes Herz (Aus der Reihe "24FPS – Fotografie im Film")

West Berlin, 1979. Jürgen Baldiga, the son of a miner from Essen, has just moved to the city and decides to become an artist. He works as a male prostitute and a cook, writes poetry, and keeps a diary. After testing positive for HIV in 1984, he discovers photography. His images are meant to freeze time and capture reality: they depict his friends and lovers, wild sex, and life on the streets—and, time and again, the exuberant queens of the SchwuZ gay club, who become his chosen family. Caught between despair and desire, rebellion and an unbridled will to survive, Baldiga—in the face of his own impending death—becomes a chronicler of West Berlin’s subculture. When he died in 1993 at the age of 34, he left behind thousands of photographs and 40 diaries—a unique artistic legacy.

The film is a portrait of a radical and complex artist—and of the legendary West Berlin gay scene of the ’80s and early ’90s, which Baldiga captured through his photography with a sensitivity and authenticity unlike anyone else’s.

Germany 2024, 92 min, original German version | FSK: 16
Director: Markus Stein | Screenplay: Ringo Rösener