About Zurich in the mid-1950s: The young shy teacher Ernst Ostertag (Matthias Hungerbuhler) becomes a member of the gay organization DER KREIS (The Circle), whose publication unites the fragile yet vibrant post World War II gay community in Switzerland. Upon meeting cabaret singer and female impersonator Robi Rapp (Sven Schelker), Ernst immediately falls head over heels in love with him, and he finds himself torn between his bourgeois existence and acceptance of his homosexuality. For Robi, it is a relationship that proves to last a lifetime. Featuring a unique blend of narrative and documentary formats with the modern day protagonists commenting on the scripted sequences of the film, THE CIRCLE deftly charts the increasing repression against homosexuals in Zurich as the two young and very different men fight for their love, and, together with their friends, for the rights of gays. (C) Wolfe