Todd Haynes retrospective in Munich

Writer/director Todd Haynes sure has come a long way from playing with his Barbie dolls. The independent filmmaker, and one of the most important directors of the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s, will be honored with a career retrospective at this year's Munich Film Festival, which runs from June 29 to July 7.

Haynes doesn't have a large body of work, but there's a real thematic and stylistic symmetry to it that would become more prominent when screened together. All five of his feature films will be shown, including the radical Jean Genet anthology film Poison, the environmental/body horror drama Safe, his ode to glam rock decadence Velvet Goldmine, the Sirkian post-modern melodrama Far From Heaven, and the non-traditional biographical portrait of Bob Dylan I'm Not There. Also showing will be the short films Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud, the legendary and notorious Barbie doll classic (and officially unreleased) Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, and Dottie Gets Spanked. The highly-praised HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce will also be shown.

Haynes will be in attendance, as will his frequent collaborator cinematographer Edward Lachman.