"Bent", by Sean Mathias (England)

*BENT*	England

Based on a play by Martin Sherman, the film describes the drama of homosexuals at the height of Nazism in Germany. Max and Rudi are lovers and they try to escape the persecution of Hitler by moving away inland in search of the assistance of friends and relatives. It is not long, however, before they are imprisoned and taken to a concentration camp. In the train transporting them to prison, they are tortured by the guards, and Rudi is assassinated. Max, desperate, finds comfort in the arms of Horst, a prisoner with the pink triangle on his clothes, indicating his condition of homosexual. Initially, Max tries to hide that he is homosexual (prisoners who revealed they were gay were massacred by the guards and by the prison inmates), and wears the yellow triangle on his breast (to mark the fact he was Jewish). Little by little, he becomes politically aware and begins to wear the pink triangle on his chest as a result of the ever stronger relationship with Horst.

Director

DIRECTOR:	Sean Mathias
SCREENPLAY:	Martin Sherman
CINEMATOGRAPHER:	Yorgos Arvanitis
EDITION:	Isabel Lorente
MUSIC:	Philip Glass
CAST:	Mick Jagger, Clive Owen, Brain Webber, Lothaire Bluteau, Nikolaj Waldau
PRODUCER:	Gina Carter
PRODUCTION:	Channel Four International Dixie Linder 124 Horseferry Rd – Londres SWIP 2 Tel: 00 44 171 306 8455 Fax: 00 44 171 306 8361
WORLD SALES:	Film Four International Dixie Linder – Michael Solinger 124 Horseferry Rd - Londres SWIP 2 Tel: 00 44 171 306 8455 Fax: 00 44 171 306 8361
ORIGINAL TITLE:	Bent
	Col., 118 min., 1997

Sean Mathias is better known as theater director. Indiscretions, staged by him on Broadway in New York, received nine indications for the Tony Awards. In 1992, he staged Uncle Vanya that brought him five indications for the Olivier Awards. In the same year, he adapted The Lost Language of Cranes, a novel by David Leavitt, to television, filmed by the BBC. Soon after, he published his first novel: Manhattan Morning.