About

On Fassbinder's birthday in 1978, his lover Armin Meier killed himself in their apartment while Fassbinder was away at Cannes screening Despair. The weight of this bears heavily on In a Year with 13 Moons, made just months afterward and dedicated to Meier. According to Fassbinder it is the story of "a man who loves so much that he offers his own organ." Erwin (Volker Spengler) is a working-class butcher (much like Meier had himself been) who undergoes gender reassignment surgery in an unsuccessful attempt to appease a lover. Now living as Elvira, she becomes an isolated, lonely shell, stuck in an abusive marriage. As the daily humiliations of her life become increasingly unbearable and she spirals deeper into depression, Elvira attempts to reconnect with family and her former lover. One of Fassbinder's most personal films, and the first of only two that he shot himself. After filming, Fassbinder told his editor Juliane Lorenz, "It would have killed me if I hadn't made this."

MA15+ | Nudity and sexual references