Baby, I Will Make You Sweat

(R)age: “Hein's experimental film made in the late 1990s, is both a very personal and aesthetically reflected examination of aging, the need for sex and tenderness, and Jamaica as a place of longing for a white, older woman. ‘The most courageous film of the festival,’ was the verdict of the press in 1995 on the occasion of the premiere at Berlinale Forum. In 2022, against current discourses on racism and power, the portrayal of exoticism and stereotyped body images is possibly more provocative than the thematization of female sex tourism in 1995.” (Florian Wüst). Birgit Hein (1942 – 2023), who died just recently, was one of Germany's most influential avant-garde filmmakers and activists and one who took an explicit feminist stand. She was also one of the founders of XSCREEN in Cologne, an exhibition space in a former porn cinema providing a stage for subcultures. She wrote several books about experimental and underground film. Radical in her style and making herself vulnerable in her films, it is worth reconsidering Hein’s BABY, I WILL MAKE YOU SWEAT from a feminist decolonial point of view. (Clarissa Thieme)

Book presentation BIRGIT HEIN published by Mike Hoolboom. Download the PDF here.
Followed by an introduction by Nanna Heidenreich.