Panorama International / Belgian Premiere

Baldiga – Unlocked Heart

Markus Stein

Jürgen Baldiga, son of a miner, moves from the German countryside to Berlin in 1979 with the ambition of becoming an artist. At the time, the city was still divided by a wall, and the young gay artist discovers on the west side Berlin's gay subculture, which offers him a space of freedom and acceptance and where he finds an alternative family.

Baldiga alternately works a sex worker, cook or bartender, while also writing poetry and chronicling his daily life in a diary. Using photography, he begins to document the buzzing underground scene – where sex is omnipresent – straightforwardly.

However, the 1980s also mark the beginning of the AIDS crisis, and Baldiga himself does not escape the disease. When he contracts HIV in 1984, his photography takes on a sense of urgency, as if to put time on hold while his own death seems imminent…

Drawing on the thousands of photographs and literary works left behind by Jürgen Baldiga, the film Balgida – Unlocked Heart shows us a considerable artistic legacy, a true testament to the urge for life of 1980s Berlin and a duty of remembrance against the stigmatisation of gay life.

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Photo

sat. 16 NOV. / 16:30 & 20:30
cinematek plateau
OV de st en
92'

2024 / de

Prod : Hoferichter & Jacobs GmbH

EN