Homophobia: Pathos and the Culture of Fear

Homophobia: Pathos and the Culture of Fear

Homophobia is an intensely dramatic short film by Austrian writer-director Gregor Schmidinger, which was released last week in support of The International Day Against Homophobia. The film deals with a theme that’s of major concern in our present-day political and social worlds: homophobia, the fear of homosexuals and of their way of life. Homophobia also deals with a perhaps even deeper issue: the fear of oneself being homosexual.

The film tells the story of an adolescent boy serving in the Austrian Military Forces, who experiences homosexual feelings towards one of his comrades. It’s their last night serving on the Austrian-Hungarian border, where they are socially isolated and armed with loaded weapons. On their final patrol, underlying tensions reach a climax, and the young boy must confront both the judgements of others and his own self-understanding.

Homophobia explores the difficulties faced by many young homosexuals, and, in a wider sense, by outsiders who have to fight against social disapproval. While the subject of fear, persecution and coming out is familiar territory in gay cinema, Homophobia takes this important topic and, by telling a compellingly intense story focused on a single main character, is successfully able to universalize it.

Thanks to Georg Csarmann at Short of the Week.

Homophobia: Pathos and the Culture of Fear

(Best Watched in HD Full-Screen Mode)

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