Mahide Lein

Non-binary film maker Toni Karat invited queer and sex-positive people of the ‘Berlin porn bubble’ for this impressive documentary about narcissism and self-love. In authentic and touching self-reflective interviews ten protagonists who are as diverse as possible – lesbian, gay, queer, trans, non-binary and often over 50 – tell their sexual stories and contemplate their personal journeys and struggles. It’s an almost philosophical little masterpiece with a lot of honesty and authenticity on both sides of the camera.

Manuela, the mermaid, is annoyed: The only thing her counterparts in the self-awareness group are interested in is the question, "Where is your clitoris?".

A sparse room with a single power plug. The jewel: a copy machine. Leather, metal, fur. A place where you don‘t sit squarely at a table with flowers and a salt shaker, but where you explore all dimensions of the space. Unwielding forms. Between 1981 and 1996, the lesbian-run „Pelze Multimedia“ in West Berlin was a beloved and notorious venue for experimental art and music, for sex parties, bar nights and avant-garde fashion shows staged on a scaffolding. Interviews with three of the showrunners are intertwined with private archive materials. SUBJECT SPACES explores the memory of a subculture, the question of feminist heritage and an aesthetic practice that stood in stark contrast to large parts of the women‘s movement at the time.