Cristina Perincioli

Cristina Perincioli is a Swiss filmmaker, author, and activist, born in Bern in 1946, who moved to Berlin in 1968 and became a pioneering figure of queer feminist filmmaking in Germany. She co-founded Berlin's lesbian movement in 1972, helped establish the city's first women's center in 1973 and Europe's first women's rape crisis center in 1977, and with her partner Cäcilia Rentmeister co-wrote Anna und Edith (1975), the first feature film about a lesbian relationship broadcast on German television — the story of two insurance-company colleagues who fall in love during a labor dispute. Her docudrama The Power of Men Is the Patience of Women (1978) was one of the earliest films to directly address domestic violence from a feminist perspective and screened internationally. Made decades before lesbian cinema or domestic-violence narratives reached mainstream visibility, Perincioli's work as a director, writer, and organizer connects the histories of German feminism, lesbian activism, and political filmmaking.