Director Sebastian Meise Exposes Germany's Infamous 'Paragraph 175' in 'Great Freedom'

Director and co-writer Sebastian Meise has commanded attention in the past with his first narrative feature, "Still Life," as well as his documentary "Outing." But it's his new feature film, "Great Freedom," co-written with Thomas Reider, that became an international hit and was short-listed for the Academy Award for Best International Feature. It did not go on to be nominated, but, Meise told EDGE, "it was really exciting that we were short-listed."

Part of the film's power comes from a pair of remarkable performances from actors Franz Rogowski and Georg Friedrich, who play a pair of prison inmates. Rogowski (a rising star who has also starred in the Christian Petzold films "Transit," from 2018, and "Undine," from 2020) plays Hans, a gay man who, after being liberated from a Nazi concentration camp by the Allies, is promptly turned back over to German authorities and locked up once again for the "crime" of being gay under Paragraph 175, a notorious German law from the 19th century that criminalized homosexuality.

Friedrich (whose credits include 2017's "Bright Nights" and 2020's "Narcissus and Goldmund") plays Viktor, a heterosexual man serving a life sentence for a crime of passion. As the post-WWII decade pass by, the two meet time and time again in prison; Hans keeps being arrested (he'll never not be gay, after all), while Viktor's hopes for parole grow remote due to his having acquired a drug habit while behind bars. Theirs is a strange, improbably friendship – at one point Hans looks back at their early days with the wry recollection that Viktor, deeply homophobic when they first meet, kept beating him up. But it's a true, deep friendship all the same, and remarkable for the way in which it grows alongside both men's ever-evolving attitudes and outlooks as time, age, and experience shape their respective outlooks.

Part of the film's power comes, too, from the story itself. Paragraph 175 was a real law, and, as Meise noted to EDGE, both the law and the structural bias it reflected profoundly affected the lives of countless gay men; indeed, it wasn't until the 1990s that Paragraph 175 was abolished, though (as the movie notes) its enforcement was all but eliminated in 1969.

Sebastian Meise opened up to EDGE about why the film has both historical and contemporary resonance, the costs of institutional erasure, and how he knew that two actors who had never worked together on screen before would create a compelling cinematic chemistry.

EDGE: This story reflects an overlooked part of German history, and of gay history – and in some places it's not history, it's the present time. But what about it said to you that you must make this movie?

Sebastian Meise: I was really shocked about it. It was such a blind spot for me, that I didn't know so much about the history of Paragraph 175 and queer history. I was not aware of the whole dimension of the meticulousness of the persecution, and the absurdity of the persecution – to pursue harmless men who just are in love with other people. It was so bizarre, and it affected not only those who were imprisoned, it affected all gay life back then. It affected so many people.

And then, of course, we see these developments nowadays, in democratic countries where conservative forces are coming back very strongly. We see it in Europe, especially in Hungary and Poland, where, all of a sudden, laws like this pop up again. They're part of the European community, and Europe doesn't answer; they don't do anything. I think it's not only for LGBTQ rights [that I made this film], it's also [out of] concerns of different kinds of democratic achievements: Freedom of the press, women's rights. They are all endangered.

EDGE: The history of Paragraph 175 is shocking in itself, but the fact that the Allies liberated the concentration camps and then sent gay prisoners straight back to jail is horrifying.

Sebastian Meise: Yeah, well, they have been in prison, they have to serve the remaining sentence. And this is so absurd, because, for me, the Allies always have been liberators. Growing up in Austria, I mean, the Allies liberated us! And, in this case, they were on the same level as the Nazis. This was a shocking discovery, because for gay people the Third Reich didn't stop [with the end of World War II].

EDGE: There are some places in the United States where schoolteachers are being forbidden to allow students to ask about or discuss anything to do with LGBTQ+ people. Did you have to deal with that sort of institutional erasure when you were researching the history of Paragraph 175?

Sebastian Meise: I always wondered why we don't learn these things in school. I mean, this is a very big part of history, and an important part of history, and it's not taught in school. Nobody knows about this paragraph here. It has never been in the press; there almost no films about it. I talked to many people in the queer community, and even they didn't know about it. I talked to my father, who grew up in the '50s and '60s, and he didn't know about it. So, I was really wondering why is this such a thing that nobody puts a light on.

EDGE: I only learned about Paragraph 175 by reading a comic book by [out German cartoonist] Ralf König.

[Laughter]

Sebastian Meise: That's funny, yeah.

EDGE: I think you said in an interview that you had Franz Rogowski in mind for the part of Hans when you were writing the script. What caused you to decide he was the actor you needed for the part?

Sebastian Meise: I can't really say. It's just that I like him very much as an actor. And it was the couple [in the form of the characters Hans and Viktor] that interested me a lot, with [actor] Georg Friedrich playing the second main character. I've always been looking for this special couple, and this energy, the chemistry between these two guys, is so important for the film. It's the core of the film, and that's what I was looking for.

EDGE: They hadn't worked together before, I don't think, but you knew somehow.

Sebastian Meise: Yeah, I knew somehow. And they were very interested in working together. I realized, talking to them separately, that they really admire each other, and that was one of the reasons why I thought, "Yeah, of course this is gonna work. They have such a big respect [for each other]." And that's what the characters have for each other, also, in the film. So, [the film] came to life a little bit, so to say.

EDGE: It sounds like you also had Georg in mind from the start, for the character of Viktor.

Sebastian Meise: Yeah, absolutely. I knew Georg from [his work in] Austria. He's quite well known here. As I said, I was looking for that for the couple, and they both came immediately into my imagination. And then we wrote the roles a little bit for them. I mean, especially Georg, which was kind of risky, because I didn't know if it would work out. But it worked out in the end, so I'm really happy.

EDGE: Did you also know Franz Rogowski from his film work?

Sebastian Meise: Yes, I discovered Franz from his films he made with Christian Petzold. I think he's a great physical actor. What he does with his body is just amazing, and that was one thing that I was really interested in with this character, because he's going through a physical transformation [over the decades] and he manages to stay sexy. Franz is very sexy.

[Laughter]

EDGE: Hans is a fearless character, and he's very still, in a way, very Zen. Or is it more that he's become resigned?

Sebastian Meise: No, no, I think he's that [sort of] stand up person. In research [for the film] we talked a lot to victims – people who were imprisoned back in the '60s – and they all had this attitude, you know, this kind of standing up. It's not rebellions, but kind of accepting fate, you know, and continuing on, because that is the only chance they had. They were imprisoned for something they are and they couldn't change, so they had to deal with this [by saying], "Okay, that's how it is. I keep on doing what I am, and being what I am."

EDGE: In the film, Hans brilliantly turns the system against itself when he realizes there is a way to spend a romantic night with a special friend. Are these the sorts of things you found in your research that you decided to bring into the story? Or was it something you invented for the character?

Sebastian Meise: Yeah, well, both. I mean, not the way we show it, but I always liked the idea that it was so absurd. You put a gay man into prison with other men. I mean, what did they expect would happen there? This is something I found so funny, and so absurd.

EDGE: Was that fearless quality in your mind all along for Hans? Or was it something Franz Rogowski brought to the film?

Sebastian Meise: No, no, I had this in mind, and he immediately took it up. This is maybe what I knew he's so good at. He has such a strong presence. And he's not breakable, in a way. This was how the character was designed from the start. What we worked on with Franz a lot were these different states of energy. When he comes out of the concentration camp and is put back into prison again, he is broken. He's trying to keep his dignity, but still he's a broken man [in the '40s]. And in the '50s he has a lot of energy, and he's fighting against the system. Then, in the '60s, he has accepted and slowed down, and he's coming to peace with his life.

EDGE: How did you approach Franz about the role – was he keen for it, or did you have to convince him?

Sebastian Meise: Well, he liked the script a lot, but at first it was not clear if he would have time for it. He works a lot, and so it was not easy to schedule. And then I wrote him a love letter, and he said, "Okay, I'm doing it!"

[Laughter]

No, but he was into the project from the start with a lot of enthusiasm, and it was really great working with him.

"Great Freedom" will open theatrically in New York on March 4 at Film Forum, followed by Los Angeles and a national expansion.

Watch the trailer below: