At the beginning of the 50s, two extremely disparate men meet in a private sanatorium for consumptives: an officer in the People's Police, Josef Heiliger; and a young Protestant curate, Hubertus Koschenz. On account of their consumption, they have to share a room. Initially, this is the only thing they have in common. The film explores Hubertus's struggle with his sexuality within the context of both the church and the socialist state.
Acting
Pose and Möck's suffocating chemistry in tight quarters
Direction
Warneke's stealthy critique of GDR hypocrisy
Writing
Dialogue so coded it needed state censors confused
Director
Lothar Warneke
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot in a real former TB hospital; actors lived on set to capture institutional ennui. The GDR almost banned it for being 'too depressing.'
One of the first East German films to center gay experience, released months before the Wall fell — a requiem for a country that couldn't acknowledge its own citizens.
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