Great Freedom

Große Freiheit

Director: Sebastian Meise
Country: Austria, Germany

2021 | 117 min. | German
Subtitles: English
FSK 16

Cast_ Franz Rogowski, Georg Friedrich, Thomas Prenn, Anton von Lucke Screenplay_ Sebastian Meise, Thomas Reider Camera_ Crystel Fournier Producer_ Sabine Moser, Oliver Neumann, Benny Drechsel Rights_ Piffl Medien

Franz Rogowski and Georg Friedrich in a yearning drama about a forbidden love between men that survives three decades in prison.

The injustice recounted by director Sebastian Meise still resonates to this day. Hans (Franz Rogowski) is jailed in 1968 because he was filmed secretly having sex with other men. It’s not the first incarceration of this sensitive, easy-going man who stands by his sexuality amid revulsion and ignorance. In flashbacks, ›Große Freiheit‹ reveals the continuities of an injustice that the Federal Republic of Germany carried over from the Nazis. In 1945, Hans and Viktor (Georg Friedrich) meet for the first time; they’re cellmates. Initial aversion gives way to tender intimacy as Hans tries to practise gay love even in prison, to the extent the blind spots of the system allow it. An epochal story, at once intimate and profound.Presented by Jerusalem Film Festival.

Director

Director Sebastian Meise studied painting in New York and philosophy and musicology in Vienna. He was a student of Michael Haneke’s at the Film Academy Vienna. His 2011 feature-film debut, ›Stillleben‹, was followed by the documentary ›Outing‹ (2012). ›Große Freiheit‹ received the jury prize at ›Un Certain Regard‹ in Cannes.

Screenings

  • Saturday 13.11.202118:00HeidelbergHDGloria
  • Sunday 14.11.202115:00MannheimMAAtlantis