Genre: Documentary, Gay/Lesbian, True Story, Political, Military, Society
Plot: PARAGRAPH 175 is a documentary about the 10 to 15,000 German men who were arrested because of their homosexuality between the years of 1933 and 1945 during World War II. Some of the men were sent to concentration camps to be killed. Others, an estimated 4,000 survived. PARAGRAPH 175, from directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (THE CELLULOID CLOSET), tells the tragic story and includes interviews with 7 of the only 9 living survivors.It was Klaus Müller, curator of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, who convinced directors Epstein and Friedman of the urgent need to make the film PARAGRAPH 175. Despite their small number of survivors who remain to tell the tale, their accounts unearth a rich trove of anecdotal history. The stories of their treatment are both lyrical and horrific. These 20th Century gay Germans lived freely through the Weimar years. In the '30s, they were initially ignored by an indifferent Hitler. Then, with the implementation of an obscure legal statute (Paragraph 175) which aimed to exterminate homosexuals entirely, they became the victims of a brutal persecution. Rupert Everett's solemn narration puts the stories in context, as do photographs, footage, and music that remind us of the eerie wistfulness of pre-Nazi Germany. The film makers also put the
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| Directed by |
Rob Epstein
The Celluloid Closet, The Times of Harvey Milk, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt | |
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| Cast |
Rupert Everett
Shrek 2, My Best Friend's Wedding, A Midsummer Night's Dream |
 | Marlene Dietrich
Touch of Evil, Judgment at Nuremberg, Witness for the Prosecution |
 | Adolf Hitler
And Now for Something Completely Different, Night and Fog, Triumph of the Will |
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