Eismayer

Vice Lieutenant Eismayer is the most feared drill instructor in the Austrian army. He shouts at recruits, humiliates them, pushes past the line, and defends this as method. At home he has a wife and a son. What no one knows is that Eismayer is gay and has hidden it for years. When Mario Falak, a young and openly gay recruit, joins the unit, the order Eismayer built cracks from inside for the first time. David Wagner's first feature is based on real people: Charles Eismayer and Mario Falak married in 2014. The narrative is not a coming-out story but a study of how harshness gets built as a defence. The military setting is not romanticised either. Gerhard Liebmann plays Eismayer and Luka Dimic plays Falak; both won at the Austrian Film Awards. The film took the Critics' Week grand prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2022. Who it's for: Viewers who like queer cinema, adaptations of real events, and drama set in military environments. Who it's not for: The scenes of abuse and humiliation in the first half are long and uncomfortable. The narrative also does not fully reckon with what its protagonist did.