Cristina Perincioli


Cristina Perincioli is a Swiss film director, writer, multimedia producer and webauthor. She moved to Berlin in 1968. Since 2003 she lives in Brandenburg.
Her docufiction films For Women - Chapter 1 and advanced the causes of the women's movement in the 1970s. Both films are now restored and their collaborative production method rediscovered.
From 1990 on she developed interactive storytelling, and on this basis, two adventure games with interactive video, created seven computer serious games for the public space and several internet portals on violence against women.

Life and career

In 1968, Cristina Perincioli moved to Berlin to study at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin. This motivated her to documentary films and feature films. Her docufiction about a women's strike, For Women: Chapter 1, from 1971 is one of the first contributions to Women's cinema in West Germany; the film won the "Award of the Film Journalists" at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 1972. Harun Farocki writes: "You can see how much fun liberating knowledge can be."
She was a co-founder of both the Lesbian movement in 1972 and 1973 of the first "Women's Center".
In 1977 Perincioli founded the Sphinx Filmproduktion GmbH, with Marianne Gassner as a production manager. The documentary fiction ' is also shown internationally. From an interview with Perincioli:
Michael Althen described 2008 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung functions and effects of the film as a
Restored and digitised, both films For Women - Chapter 1 and The Power of Men... were shown at the in Ghent in 2024. Programme designer Kristofer Woods writes:
In 1969, Perincioli was active in the anarchist paper ', in 1972 she co-founded the lesbian movement and in 1973 the first Berlin women's centre at Hornstrasse 2 in Kreuzberg, as well as the first Women's rape crisis center in Europe 1977.
In 1975, together with her partner Cäcilia Rentmeister, she wrote the screenplay for the first feature film about a lesbian relationship on German television, Anna und Edith. The film shows how a love affair develops between two female colleagues in the middle of a labour dispute - similar to how many previously heterosexual women explored the "other shore" during the women's movement of the time.
Perincioli describes this as a contemporary witness in the rbb TV documentary series Berlin - Schicksalsjahre einer Stadt and also states how the women's movement of the 1970s found a particularly favourable climate as a "fast breeder" of pioneering ideas and practical projects under the "West Berlin cheese bell“
Perincioli published as radio- and book author. Inspired by research in London and Harrisburg, US, she contributed to the public debate and awareness about domestic violence and about the risks of nuclear energy.
From 1990 she developed interactive storytelling, and on this basis, two adventure game with interactive video, and created seven computer serious games for the public space
She has taught at Kenya Institute of Mass Communication in Nairobi, the Berlin University of the Arts, the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin, the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg, the Merz Akademie, and the Schule für Gestaltung Bern und Biel.
From the late 1990s on, Perincioli ventured to use interactive media for "sensitive issues" such as sexual and domestic violence; she created – employing user-friendly methods such as Discovery learning – award-winning web internet portals for understanding, counselling and preventing violence, funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation, the Foundation Deutsche Jugendmarke, the and the .
In 2015, Cristina Perincioli's new book Berlin wird feministisch. Das Beste, was von der 68er Bewegung blieb was published in Germany.She describes the beginnings of the German second women ́s movement in the revolutionary years 1968–1974 in West Berlin.
Through a wealth of documents, 80 photographs, reflections and interviews with 28 feminist activists, she shows where she and her fellow campaigners drew their ideas from, as well as the fury and strength they needed to put these ideas into practice. Perincioli also considers the beginnings of the women ́s movement as an example of how the modernization of society was initiated by "direct democratic" actions.
According to Sonya Winterberg the book shows that the second German women's movement has "many mothers":

Claire Horst also emphasizes the new "look behind the scenes":

An English version of the complete book, translated by Pamela Selwyn, is published online: see "Websites" below.
Living in a village in Brandenburg since 2003 she keeps goats, makes cheese and manages and transforms her pineforest into a climat reslient mixed forest.

Awards

1972 Perincioli received the "Award of the Film Journalists" at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen for her thesis film at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin "For Women: Chapter 1". Gwendolyn Audrey Foster writes about her directorial work: "Cristina Perincioli is an important figure in the tradition of Straub, Huillet an Fassbinder...". Best rating for the CD-ROM "Save Selma" in Feibel's “Software For Children”-Ratings 1999 and 2000. For her web platform "www.4uman.info" to prevent violence in relationships, Perincioli received at the 6th Berlin Crime Prevention Day 2005 the Securitas Award for the "innovative character of the site in violence prevention." Her website www.spass-oder-gewalt.de about prevention of sexual violence among young people in 2007 received the Thuringian Women Media Award.

Works

Film

Striking my Eyes, Bern/Schweiz Nixon Visit and Highschool Fight Occupation and Self-Administration of a Student Residence For Women: Chapter 1, a Documentary Fiction Kreuzberg is Ours Women Behind the Camera Anna and Edith, Feature Film, ZDF-TV. Published on DVD by Edition Salzgeber feature film/documentary fiction, ZDF-TV. Published on DVD.Population Explosion, KIMC Nairobi, Kenya
  • ''With Woman's Weapons''

Writing (selection)

Interviews on the topic of "Domestic Violence: Cases of Abuse", and reportages and interviews on “Life in the Women´s Shelter in England", in: Sarah Haffner : Gewalt in der Ehe, und was Frauen dagegen tun Wagenbach, Berlin 1976Women of Harrisburg, Or: We don't let Us Talk Out of Fear, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1980, further editions 1986, 1991. Total book circulation 20.000.Eye and Ear – Computer and Creativity. A Compendium of Computer Graphics, Animation, Music and Video, co-author Cäcilia Rentmeister, DuMont, Cologne 1990
  • "From Anarchism and Lesbianism to the Women's Center. Why had the Tomato to Fly so Far?", in: Heinrich Boell Foundation and the Feminist Institute : How Far was Flying the Tomato? A Reflective Gala of the Women of 68, Boell, Berlin 1999.Berlin wird feministisch. Das Beste, was von der 68er Bewegung blieb, Querverlag, Berlin 2015. See "Websites" for complete English version.Frauen- und Lesbenbewegung in Westberlin in Rebellisches Berlin, Gruppe Panther & Co, Assozition A, Berlin, 2021

Websites

  • – Complete English Version of Cristina Perincioli's book Berlin Goes Feminist. Anarchism - Lesbianism - Feminism, Berlin 2015
  • - How the Women's Centre was founded in Berlin in 1973 and the 17 projects that followed
  • – Exemption strategies from sexual abuse. For young people
  • – Information for victims of domestic violence and for counselors. Website in seven languages: English, German and five other languageswww.ava2.de – "Anti Violence Awareness": Information, tools and videos for new methods of intervention in domestic violence, more effective assistance and offender programs, for police, health and social care, councils and women's representatives
  • – Violence in relationships: awareness raising and information for men. In English and Germanwww.spass-oder-gewalt.de – Prevention of sexual violence among young people: Learning platform for young people
  • – keeping dairy goats healthy - knowledge and experience from many countries.
  • – Sculptors Perincioli. 100 Years Life and Works at Berne, Switzerland – Works, Biographies, Records and Reception of Etienne and Marcel Perincioli
  • Perincioli reports on how she transformed her pine forests into mixed forest in the drought 2018-2022

Audiovisual

  • Documentary Film about C. Perincioli and U. Sillge, by Anke Schwarz, Sandra Stoll und Roman Klarfeld, Das Burlebübele mag I net, Berlin 2008
  • in Dare the im_possible, Heinrich Boell-Stiftung, Berlin, 2016
  • , Berlin bleibt feministisch – ein Generationendialog, Dare the im_possible, Berlin, 2016