12/09/2026
film
Two Mothers
[Meine Mütter – Spurensuche in Riga] dir. Rosa von Praunheim, Germany 2007, 87'
- Rosa von Praunheim (Holger Mischwitzky, 1942–2025), an icon of German gay cinema, only learned at the age of 60 that Gertrud was not his biological mother; instead, she had taken him from an orphanage in Riga and adopted him. The director sets out to find his unknown "real" parents.
- His investigation takes him through German archives and to Latvia, where he uncovers numerous traces of a tragic and criminal German past. He discovers the identity of his mother—who had already died in 1946—yet, in the end, he asks himself: "Do I really want to know all this?"
- Although Rosa von Praunheim is searching for his own identity in the film, *My Mothers* goes far beyond the protagonist's personal story, offering a moving perspective on German history.
