Meine Mütter – Spurensuche in Riga

The seventieth film by the German film maker and homosexual provocateur Rosa Von Praunheim, in other words Holger Mischwitzky, is an investigative documentary into his past. Born in Riga in 1942, he grew up in Germany. When his mother told him a few years before her death at the age of 94 that he was adopted from a children’s home in Riga during the German occupation, a whole new chapter in his life opened up. It was only after her death in 2003 however that he went looking for his biological mother and father. Von Praunheim found out that he was born in Riga prison. His mother was German. With this information, the director could do nothing other than continue searching. Two Mothers describes in a virtually chronological order the quest for his roots. On the way, he comes into contact with countless witnesses and archivists, who illuminate the horrors of the Second World War from different perspectives with their evidence and data. Von Praunheim finds out a lot more than he expected, meets relatives and does not just build an unexpectedly autobiographical story from the fragments of evidence about the start of his life, but also provides a detailed report of an underexposed part of the Holocaust.