I Don't Want to Be a Man (Music: Mor Wen)

The retrospective will open with a remarkable pair of comedies from the series Ernst Lubitsch made with actress Ossi Oswalda. Before the visually stylized The Oyster Princess, a pivotal film in the context of Lubitsch’s work, we will screen the slightly older cross-dressing comedy I Don't Want to Be a Man. Their direct comparison will allow us to trace the shift in comedic poetics along an axis ranging from a more farcical exploration of social norms to more sophisticated experimentation with filmmaking itself.