Artist

DJ Franko Maria & Toni Karat

Toni Karat is a Berlin-based lesbian non-binary artist and filmmaker. They studied fine arts at the Kunstakademie Duesseldorf (Prof. Jan Dibbets) and Hochschule der Kuenste Berlin (Prof. Karl-Horst Hoedicke), focusing on painting and photography. They also lived in London and Hamburg. Their creative work covers many fields: from being a founding member of two punk/trash bands in the early 1990s to playing deep house and minimal music in many well-known German and international clubs such as Panorama Bar (Ostgut), Pfefferbank, Irrenhouse, S036 and SchwuZ.

From 2014 they also started to produce their own music and have worked as a remixer, live performer and composer of scores, with releases on several labels including Reveller Records, TWIRL! Records (Chicago), Yes Yes Records, Minina Music, Fett Recordings, 7MNS Music, Metapop, as well as remixes for Gudrun Gut and Jean-Michel Jarre for the „Zoolook Revisited” Album. In 2018, they founded “melting point images – Film- und Fotomanufaktur”, with a focus on queer-feminist artporn films and documentaries. Toni Karat's films are characterised by the unique display of queer intimacy, where camerawork and experimental music go hand in hand. They strive for an artistic and explicit visualisation of queer sexuality and eroticism. Their films Driven, The Mirror, FagDyke Cruising and Endzeit Berlin have been screened at many international festivals.