GREAT FREEDOM: A Review by Jacob Shevitz & M. Woods
In honor of Pride Month, this is the third installment of our weekly Reeling Pride Month Film Showcase presented by MUBI. We are also celebrating the upcoming 41st edition of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival.
Thanks to MUBI we are thrilled to present the universally critically acclaimed GREAT FREEDOM, accompanied by the short film JEAN GENET IN CHICAGO, by local Chicago screen gem, Frédéric Moffet.
Don’t forget to take advantage of MUBI’s exclusive 30-day free-trial offer at www.mubi.com/reeling
The Germany shown in Sebastian Meise's GREAT FREEDOM represents the institutionalized terrorism of governments and societies where bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, and hate is codified. In his first film in almost a decade, Sebastian Meise directs Franz Rogowsky in an award winning performance as Hans Hoffman, a man who finds himself imprisoned repeatedly for engaging in sex acts with other men. Deemed criminal by the state, he is imprisoned and befriends his straight cellmate Viktor (Georg Friedrich) who happens to be a convicted murderer.
The strength of these performances shows in the intricately-woven, compelling depiction of a friendship; at the core of this relationship is an earnest representation of mutual care that feels tangible and equally despairing; throughout the movie, we witness Hans Hoffman’s struggle through repeated heartbreaks and punishing tragedy, a narrative of trials that span over two decades, shot from a voyeuristic, meticulous, almost static point of view that makes him look as if he’s always trapped in his prison. From the very start we are brought into a surveillance state, in which Hoffman’s privacy is already pierced by a panoptic police voyeur - a comment on the fascist political regime, our complicity as spectators within that structure, and the use of media to spy, capture, sexualize, gratify, propagandize, and document a doctored reality.
But it is not that the film demands attention. Meise intricately weaves a unique language of sometimes self-reflexive filmmaking into a narrative that captivates, but the performances tie together the human element. That’s what ultimately makes this a movie not just about oppression and pain, but the importance of human understanding and decency.
A review by Jacob Shevitz & M. Woods
Saturday, October 10, 7:00 PM
Chicago Filmmakers (1326 W. Hollywood Ave)
Denis Mueller and Ilko Davidov | 2026 | 86 min | Digital Projection
Directors Denis Mueller and Ilko Davidov in Person!
Russell Banks: I Write in Order to Be a Better Person examines the life and work of the renowned American writer, author of the acclaimed novels Affliction, Continental Drift, Book of Jamaica, The Sweet Hereafter, and Rule of the Bone, focusing on his ability to use fiction to question his own life and to confront the biases and cultural assumptions, thus allowing him to become a better person. This drive to become a better person through literature allowed Banks to develop the empathy and compassion necessary to recognize the full, shared humanity of those with backgrounds and outlooks different from his own.
“A thoughtful, literary look at the works and life of one of the best US storytellers in the last fifty years” - Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch