Colonel Redl

Colonel Redl is a 1985 drama film by Hungarian director István Szabó. The plot, set in the period before World War I, follows the rise of Alfred Redl, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Redl, who comes from a humble background, enters military school as a boy and has an illustrious military career pushed forward by his loyalty to the crown. He is appointed the head of an intelligence gathering unit, but his attraction to men eventually causes his downfall. The screenplay, loosely inspired from British playwright John Osborne's play A Patriot for Me, charts the rise of inter-ethnic tensions in Austro-Hungary, which were to bring about the assassination in Sarajevo and the empire eventual disintegration. The film stars Klaus Maria Brandauer, Jan Niklas and Gudrun Landgrebe. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and won the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 1985.