Back to All NewsELDORADO - Everything the Nazis Hate
Entertainment
29 May 2023
GlobalGermany
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A doc feature about the queer community in the 1920s in Berlin.
Launch is on June 28, 2023 on Netflix
Director: Benjamin Cantu
Writer: Benjamin Cantu, Felix Kriegsheim
Reenactments: Matt Lambert
Cinematography: Felix Leiberg (Documentary), Christian Huck, Cezary Zacharewicz (Recreations)
Executive Producers: Felix Kriegsheim, Nils B kamp, Benjamin Cantu, Ryan White, Jessica Lawson
Production: The Thursday Company GmbH
Eldorado - Everything the Nazis Hate will launch on Netflix. The documentary uses stirring recreation scenes and moving archive footage to show the dazzling but brief heyday of the worlds first visible queer community at the end of the 1920s in Berlin. The hub of the gay, lesbian and trans* scene at the time was the "Eldorado" in Berlin-Sch neberg. Guests from around the world could find here the spirit of sexual freedom that was typical for Berlin.
Like no other dance club the "Eldorado" thrilled most diverse guests with its program until the early 1930s. Magnus Hirschfeld frequently visited the club as did Marlene Dietrich and high-ranking National Socialists.
The documentary delves into the glorious Golden Twenties and the hopes for a more liberal future while the shadows of Nazi rule became ever more apparent.
For director and co-writer Benjamin Cantu the film is a project he has taken to his heart:
"The history of the Eldorado' and especially that of queer people whose persecution did not end with 1945, was uncomfortable for the post-war public for a long time and therefore hushed up. Making this film with a great partner as Netflix is an important sign at a time when the rights of LGBTIQ* people are under pressure again in many parts of the world."
Morgan M. Page, Trans Historian and Documentary Subject: The Weimar era has always fascinated me as one brilliant moment of LGBTQ people grasping towards freedom, only to have it snatched away from them in tragedy. As I watch anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ movements attack our communities across the world from Russia to Florida to England and beyond, the lessons of the Weimar era are uncomfortably relevant.
Matt Lambert, Recreation Director:
As a queer Jewish filmmaker living and working in Berlin for over a decade, the erased LGBTQ+ history of Berlin has always been a present pulse in my own work as well as in the community events and parties I've been throwing here over the years.
The opportunity to recreate moments that celebrated queerness in Berlin 1926-1933 was a dream come true - casting from our queer community here in Berlin.
Many of the characters appearing in scenes within the Eldorado' are not just actors, but many are queer performers, artists and icons that make up fate fabric of our contemporary Berlin scene.
Felix Kriegsheim, Executive Producer
Hundred years ago, many LGBT people in Germany experienced their sexual and emotional freedom for the first time, shortly followed by the most extreme form of their oppression. This film attempts to bring these major movements back to our memories.
Dr. Klaus Mueller, Historian and Documentary Subject:
The Nazi persecution of LGBT people remains a little-noticed part of German and Western history. The fact that all of this happened here is not part of Germany's DNA.
Eldorado - Everything the Nazis Hate premieres on June 28, 2023 only on Netflix!
About Eldorado - Everything the Nazis Hate
The Eldorado nightclub in late 1920s Berlin was legendary and a pillar of Berlin's reputation as a party capital and a place of sexual diversity. Gays, lesbians and trans* people danced side by side with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Chaplin. Even a high-ranking Nazi like Ernst R hm mingled with the guests. But the Eldorado became a target of the Nazi movement early on - its closure in 1932 symbolizes a totalitarian turning point. The world's first visibly queer community was destroyed by the Nazis in just a few years. Many who had just learned about a new freedom were suddenly persecuted and murdered.
The documentary Eldorado - Everything the Nazis Hate is the first of its kind to sensitively trace the fates of queer people in the upheaval between the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Newly discovered archival footage, interviews with last eyewitnesses and historically sensual recreations bring us closer to a queer community that was already pioneering our time, a 100 years ago.
The film was made by a predominantly queer team. In addition to director Benjamin Cantu and recreation director Matt Lambert, producer Nils B kamp and members of the cast, such as MJ Harper, B rbel Schwarz and Anton Rattinger (#act out) are among them.
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