Co-promoted by the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington
Great Freedom /
Große Freiheit (2021), dir. Sebastian Meise. In German with English subtitles. Austria & Germany, 116 min.
In post-war Germany, liberation by the Allies does not mean freedom for everyone. Hans is imprisoned again and again under Paragraph 175, a law criminalizing homosexuality. Over the course of decades, he develops an unlikely yet tender bond with his cellmate Viktor, a convicted murderer.
Unearthing heartrending chapters of queer history in post-war Germany, Sebastian Meise’s moving drama harnesses the healing power of intimacy that blooms in defiance of systematic oppression. Franz Rogowski mesmerizes with a powerhouse performance in this absorbing tale of resilience and resistance. (via MUBI)
Introduced by historians Richard Wetzell and Samuel Clowes Huneke, followed by a talkback.
Samuel Clowes Huneke is an Assistant Professor of Modern German History at George Mason University. He received his Ph.D. in modern European history from Stanford University in 2019. His first book
States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany (University of Toronto Press, 2022) examines gay persecution and liberation in Germany from the end of World War Two until the end of the Cold War. He has published extensively on queer German history in scholarly journals, including
Central European History,
Journal of Contemporary History, and
New German Critique. He writes frequently for other periodicals, including the
Los Angeles Review of Books,
The Point, and
Boston Review.
Richard F. Wetzell is a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington DC and editor of the GHI's Bulletin. Trained at Stanford University (PhD), he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and has taught at Georgetown University and the University of Maryland. His recent publications include the volume
Beyond the Racial State: Rethinking the Third Reich (co-edited, Cambridge UP, 2017) and the essay
"Rosa von Praunheim, Martin Dannecker und das Verhältnis der westdeutschen Schwulenbewegung zur homosexuellen Subkultur, 1971–1986. Von Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers … zum Streit in der Aids-Krise," in: Invertito – Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Homosexualitäten 23 (2021)
RSVP
Please also join us on Tuesday, June 21, for a
book talk on
States of Liberation: Gay Men Between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold-War Germany.
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