THE CIRCLE

DER KREIS

By Stefan HAUPT

CONTRAST FILM ZÜRICH GMBH - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 2014

Zurich, 1958. The young shy teacher Ernst and the transvestite star Röbi get to know one another in the Swiss underground organization called “The Circle.” As the two dissimilar men defend their love, they witness the decline of this European-wide pioneering organization for gay emancipation.

Festivals
& Awards

Berlinale - Berlin IFF 2014
Panorama
Berlinale - EFM 2014
Teddy Award for Best Documentary & Panorama Audience Award
Boston LGBT Film Fest 2014
Audience Award for Best Documentary
Torino LGBT Film Festival 2014
Best Feature Film Award
30. Schwule Filmwoche 2014
Audience Award
Festroia International Film Festival 2014
Prize Man and his Environment
Outfest - Los Angeles 2014
Grand Jury award for Best Documentary Feature
Perlen Queer Film Fest Hannover 2014
Audience Award for Best Documentary
    • Year of production
    • 2014
    • Genres
    • Documentary, Drama
    • Countries
    • SWITZERLAND
    • Languages
    • GERMAN
    • Budget
    • 1 - 3 M$
    • Duration
    • 102 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Stefan HAUPT
    • Writer(s)
    • Stefan HAUPT, Ivan MADEO, Christian FELIX
    • EIDR
    • 10.5240/307A-891E-48D9-7287-C586-R
    • Producer(s)
    • Ivan MADEO (CONTRAST FILM ZÜRICH GMBH), Urs FREY (CONTRAST FILM ZÜRICH GMBH)
    • Synopsis
    • Zürich in the mid-1950s: The young and bashful teacher Ernst Ostertag becomes a member of the gay organization DER KREIS (THE CIRCLE). There he gets to know the transvestite star Röbi Rapp – and immediately falls head over heels in love with him. Röbi and Ernst live through the high point and the eventual decline of the organization, which, in the whole of Europe, is seen as the symbol of gay emancipation. Ernst finds himself torn between his "bourgeois" existence and his commitment to homosexuality; for Röbi it is about his first serious love relationship. A relationship that will last a lifetime. From the present, the film looks back to the time when the “Mother” of all European homosexual organizations had its high point until it fell apart. While the repression against homosexuals became increasingly more intense in Zurich, two young and very different men fight for their love and – together with their friends – for gay rights.