German director Marco Kreuzpaintner discusses courting mainstream audiences with his surprisingly resonant coming-out drama Summer Storm.

By Ken Knox

In the wake of Brokeback Mountain, it seems safe to say that the next few gay films to be released will have their work cut out for them. Those who dismissed Ang Lee's critically lauded film for perpetuating the idea that gay love ends tragically will be looking for a movie that doesn't paint such a bleak portrait of homosexuality, while audiences who embraced Brokeback's even-handed but restrained depiction of man-on-man action may worry that they will be put off by some of the more "over-the-top" situations common among gay-themed cinema. Both of those discerning audiences may be pleasantly surprised to discover Summer Storm, a sensitive and poignant German film about a gay teenager's coming of age that is unexpectedly resonant in its "universal appeal."

Before you jump to conclusions based on those last two words, rest assured that director Marco Kreuzpaintner's movie is, first and foremost, a "gay film." Not only is its lead character, Tobi (German cinema superstar Robert Stradlober), struggling to accept his sexuality (not to mention his intense feelings for his straight best friend), but Summer Storm takes a very matter-of-fact, unapologetic approach to the presentation of gay sexuality, including a prominent scene in which Tobi has sex for the very first time. Still, the story is presented with such instantly relatable simplicity -- and with equally strong emphasis on its many hetero characters -- that it will likely speak to non-gay filmgoers as well.

It is, in fact, just that crossover appeal that Kreuzpaintner, 29, had in mind when he set about telling the semi-autobiographical story. "I wanted to make a movie with a gay subject, but in a commercial way that a straight audience could connect with, but made from a gay guy like me," Kreuzpaintner tells IN Los Angeles in his thick German accent.

Based in part on his own adolescent experiences, Summer Storm depicts the events of one unexpectedly fateful summer during which Tobi's rowing team competes against an all-gay team in a rowing championship match. It is during this particularly confusing time -- the "summer storm" of the film's title -- that Tobi realizes his feelings are more than just thoughts in his head, but actually a strong part of his character and personality.

Surprisingly, Kreuzpaintner had a relatively smooth ride in making the gay-themed movie. Having made an impression with his first feature, the tender amputee drama Ganz und gar, Kreuzpaintner had become a bit of a commodity in his homeland by the time the producers of the Oscar-nominated film Beyond Silence approached him and asked if he'd be interested in working with them. After telling them that he wanted to do a story that focused on gay themes, he was surprised when they responded, "Well, we're looking for [subject matter] like that. Do you have any ideas?" He didn't. They spent the next several weeks reading gay-themed novels and not coming up with anything until one of the producers suggested that Kreuzpaintner start with his own story. Convinced, Kreuzpaintner sat down over his Christmas 2003 break and banged out the treatment in one week. And Summer Storm was on its way to the big screen.

Taking some things directly from his own life (like Tobi, Kreuzpaintner was also on a rowing team, and was also in love with his best friend), the director -- along with fellow screenwriter Thomas Bahmann -- set about making the story as compelling as possible for the screen. "It pretty closely mirrors my life," he says. "It's a lot of things that the movie and my story have in common, but of course, the drama is a different one in the movie. But in general, it's pretty much based on what my coming-out story was." One thing that didn't happen, he admits, was Tobi's first experience with sex with a fellow rowing mate. "This was wishful thinking," he says with a laugh.

Kreuzpaintner says that one of the most challenging aspects in making the movie was working with a cast of 20 young actors -- though not, as some might expect, because of the film's subject matter. "In Germany, the whole movie market is not such an industry like it is in the U.S., so it's not that much about image," he says. "For the actors, they just saw it as an actor getting the [opportunity] to play something else. Nobody wants to see himself on the big screen, so most actors don't have a problem going for something that is not like them." Even the filming of the movie's pivotal lakeside sex scene proved not to be that stressful -- at least for the actors. "I was very [nervous] shooting the scene with those kids, because you don't want to tell them, 'OK, do like this and do like that.' I was getting very anxious, until finally Robert [who is bisexual] finally said, 'Hey, would you please shut up and just be quiet? It's only sex!'" With a chuckle, Kreuzpaintner adds, "In that moment, they had to help the director, not the director helping them."

Kreuzpaintner says that it was very important for him to avoid the usual clichés of gay cinema, including placing too much emphasis on sex and especially unhappiness. "Even a lot of time if you buy a gay novel, it's always so depressing!" Kreuzpaintner exclaims. "It has to do with 'the scene,' with drugs, and [then] you have your first sex and nobody cares about you. And it always paints a kind of dark image of what it is about being gay -- perpetuated by gays themselves. I never got this. I thought, 'Wow. What's the big point? Put a movie out there that young people can connect [to] and give some hope that [being gay] is very easy. It's just another way of loving, or it's the same way of loving, and you just have to express it and that's it.' If you say, 'It's cool for me and it should be cool for the world,' more of the world will accept it."

Moreover, he says, such matter-of-factness was crucial in his goal of making the film as palatable to straight moviegoers without alienating its gay audience. "The political statement of mind that I wanted to do with the straight audience was the same thing. Before, everybody estimated that gay stories in regular movie theaters never worked. I didn't want only gays to watch the movie, because they already know what it's all about. I wanted them, of course, to connect to it and feel that they are represented -- especially young gays -- but on the other hand, I wanted to not make it more difficult for [straight audiences] to watch it. I think that the cinema changes and can change a lot of things, because we have so much power with the emotions that we can produce. And you can tell a gay story as a love story, and I think to put love in the center and not always [have it be] only about sex and all the cliché images that a straight audience might have makes it easier for them to connect."

Kreuzpaintner had the chance to be proven right when Warner Bros. International decided to get behind the film in a big way. "I had the luck that Warner Bros. was releasing it in Germany and investing a lot of money in a lot of prints and giving it a huge start," he enthuses of the film's 2004 release in his homeland. "It felt like a regular teenager movie, with the only difference that this was not boy-meets-girl but boy-meets-boy. Even the biggest German gossiping newspaper, they had a title on the main page that said, 'How gay is Germany?' after the movie came out." Meanwhile, he adds, "In the test screenings, when everybody was nervous ... and disgusted by the erotic scenes ... at the end they were clapping. And this was for me such a great feeling."

One audience member, in particular, had a profound reaction to the movie. Kreuzpaintner's lifelong friend Achim, whom Kreuzpaintner was in love with as a teenager, attended inspiration for the character of th the premiere -- not knowing that he had provided the e same name in the movie. As Kreuzpaintner recalls, "The first time the name 'Achim' came up in the movie, he got quiet. And once the movie was over, he hugged me, and he had tears in his eyes. And he said, 'Why did you never tell me [you were in love with me]?, And I said, 'Why? I knew you were straight.'"

It's perhaps a good omen that Summer Storm incited a grown straight man to cry. Kreuzpaintner says he hopes the film has a similar effect on audiences in America when it finally receives distribution here this month. "I would say Summer Storm is not a 'gay movie' in a classical way because it was actually [created] with my straight friends or straight people of a certain age that might still have difficulties with homosexuality in mind," he admits. "Everybody always says, 'OK, we are so free and everything's not a problem anymore,' but then you bring [a movie like this] to a small town and the movie starts and the [actors] are kissing for the first time, and you hear the audience going, 'Bleeeeucchh!' And you think, 'Well, maybe there is still some need to talk about it.'"

It may be too soon to tell, but it looks like the groundbreaking Brokeback Mountain may have its first truly worthy successor.