Rosa Von Praunheim
Allemagne 2004 105min German o.v. English s-t.

Heroes and Gay Nazis documents the personal histories of four gay men in present-day Germany who are, or have been, engaged in right-wing political parties. It also takes a look backward in time at gay members of Hitler’s SS. That gay people, historically persecuted for their sexuality, can indeed be right-wing extremists in the best case, and masterminds of the Holocaust in the worst, is the difficult but awful truth the film brings to light. Chilling testimonies are intertwined with interviews by left-leaning journalists and intellectuals who have followed fascism’s course through German history and who have taken a particular interest in fascism’s gay sympathizers. Theories on Hitler’s own sexuality abound, and we get a keen look at the life of famed neo-Nazi Michael Kuhnen, who died of AIDS in the late 1980s. Portraying the men as humans rather than monsters, veteran filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim conveys their deeply contradictory lives in a refreshingly unbiased way. – Frameline

Shown on:

monday, november 07, 5H15 PM parisien 7 - pgm27 (Amants des hommes + Heroes & Gay Nazis)