PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Sebastian Meise, director of the film Great Freedom.
An interview with Sebastian Meise, director of Great Freedom, recently presented at the 2021 Torino Film Festival. The film is a prison-set LGTBQ drama about friendship and love, against the backdrop of postwar Germany and the little-known Paragraph 175 provision of the German Criminal Code. In this inteview, Meise talks about researching Paragraph 175, directing a movie within the limitations of a prison setting and working with the cast, including Franz Rogowski, who won an acting award for his performance in the film at the Torino Film Festival.
Great Freedom : In postwar Germany, Hans is imprisoned again and again for being homosexual. The one steady relationship in his life becomes his long time cell mate, Viktor, a convicted murderer. What starts in revulsion grows to something called love.