Naked Rose is an experimental film inspired by the life of Pierre Seel and his autobiography co-written (but I should say, “suggested and guided”) by Jean Le Bitoux who, in turn, was one of the most important activists for GLBT rights in France and in Europe.
Born and raised in Alsace (France) in a very Catholic family, in 1939 at 16, he was robbed of his watch in a park known as a meeting place for homosexual. When he denounced the fact to the authorities, his name was added without his knowledge on the blacklist of homosexual held by the police. After the German invasion of France, Seel joined the resistance against the Nazis.
In 1940, a few months after the German invasion, at 17 Seel was summoned (along with other homosexuals) by the Gestapo officials, who had put their hands on the police files. He was arrested, interrogated and tortured for two weeks.
On 13th May 1941, he was deported by the Germans and interned in the concentration camp of Schirmeck, 30 kilometres from Strasbourg, where he was battered and tortured because of his sexual orientation. Seel and Le Bitoux are both dead (the latter just a couple of years ago) and for many this story is going to disappear into thin air, since it is only told in the almost 121 pages of the book. The book has never been translated in Italian. The film is presented as a visual /evocative synthesis of a period that hasn’t deliberately been recreated, but only alluded and summarized in a few symbols. The story is set in almost all indoor locations, in order to give maximum emphasis to the dramatic nature of the narration.