GERMANY: Germany's most notorious director has announced plans to make the first film loosely based on the story of cannibal Armin Meiwes - with €20,000 of tax money, writes Derek Scally in Berlin
Rosa von Praunheim (61), Germany's self-styled "least-liked homosexual", says the film, titled Your Heart in my Brain, will be filmed in Berlin in December and will be a "mixture of documentary, thriller and the grotesque".
"I've occupied myself with the theme of cannibalism for 20 years, it's absolutely fascinating," says von Praunheim, whose films include Can I Be Your Bratwurst, Please?
Computer technician Armin Meiwes was sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter last January after he admitted killing and eating another man. Meiwes placed an Internet advertisement three years ago looking for "well-built young men for slaughter".
Bernd Brandes (43), a computer engineer from Berlin, responded, saying he wanted to be dismembered, in what the trial judge described as the "ultimate kick". Meiwes filmed himself killing Brandes and cutting him into pieces and later ate the flesh.
Von Praunheim admits he has not bought the rights to Meiwes's story so the film won't be "the authentic one, but a similar one", he told Germany's Bild newspaper.
The film will be part-funded by a grant from a Film Foundation in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia. A spokesman for the foundation told Bild: "Any film from von Praunheim is always worth the money". Conservative politicians contacted by the newspaper expressed outrage that public money is being used to "create a monument to a criminal".
Meiwes is working on his memoirs in prison. His lawyer, Mr Harald Ermel, says he has already been approached by Hollywood studios about film rights.
Von Praunheim's career has been fuelled by controversy since the premiere at the 1971 Berlin Film Festival of his feature film Not The Homosexual is Perverse But the Situation in Which He Lives. Other controversial films included his black comedy about AIDS, A Virus Knows No Morals. Last year's Dublin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival showed a retrospective of his work.