BALDIGA - UNLOCKED HEART and ON THE OTHER SIDE OF

presented by
Calgary Queer Arts Society

BALDIGA – UNLOCKED HEART / ENTSICHERTES HERZ (2024)
Canadian Premiere

An unflinching portrait of Jürgen Baldiga, the groundbreaking German photographer and AIDS activist.

“Prostitutes, transvestites, alcoholics and the mentally ill. That’s where I feel at home. That’s the world that needs to be captured.” In 1979, 19-year old Jürgen Baldiga moves to Berlin and decides to become an artist. Faced with certain death from HIV infection, he discovers photography as his medium.

Between despair, longing, rebellion and an irrepressible will to survive, Baldiga becomes a chronicler of the queer West Berlin subculture of the ’80s and early ’90s and proves his unique talent as a sensitive and provocative photographic artist.

Director: Markus Stein

Writer: Ringo Rösener

Producer: Olaf Jacobs

Editor: Brigitte Schmidle

Cinematographer: Florian Lampersberger

Music: Manuela Schininá

Other Credits
Assistant Director: Jonas Erler; Graphics: Sebastian Peuker

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ON THE OTHER SIDE OF (2023)
Mia Felić / 6m 45s / Estonia

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF explores the transgender and non-binary body in transition through the 19th century photographic process, mordançage. The mordançage, using its tremendous chemical pressure, alters the silver gelatine prints, causing them to undergo slow, gradual transformation. The tissue of the body and of the print breaks and a new life, new forms are born.

Cinematographer: Mia Felić

Editors: Lucija Mrzljak, Mia Felić

Sound: Lucija Mrzljak