Gone

The constant tears from the mother served as a horrible distraction from what I believe was the purpose. This poor mother was slighted and misrepresented. Producers and directors owe her an apology. I found this completely unacceptable. Shame on you.

Recommended...Very emotional doc...I really felt for the mother...really felt her pain...

I hope you one day find out what happened to your son..and you are able to bring him home...and put your mind and heart at ease...

He sounded like an extraordinary human being...Thank you for sharing your story...

A police woman . Her son, working in Vienna, is missing. Her efforts for have explanations from Austrian police and authorities about her boy fate. And humiliations, silences, dark secrets, hypothesis, help from some friends and the years passing. It is more than the portrait of a case but a powerful image of similar situations. For few reasons, a gay story/ manifesto. For others - image of corruption. In essence, only the cry of a mother. And her desperated fight.

I really do not understand why this film has such a low rating. While it may be because of the production values, which I admit are not the best, the cinematography is at times quite amateurish, the structure of the piece is excellent and it presents the information in a very objective fashion and is as fascinating as it is harrowing from start to finish.

I saw the film about a year ago at the Viennale with Aeryns mother Kathy present and I really felt inspired by her commitment to finding out what really happened to her son. Her immense strength to go on is amazing and shows just how deep the love of a family member can run in times of great adversity. It would be fantastic if this film had more exposure as it shows just how corrupt and narrow minded the police in Austria can be, The way Kathy was handled and the way the case was handled in general is quite frankly disgusting.

Vienna, the "best city in the world" has a lot of strange things going on beneath its surface which need to be addressed before I believe it can truly be viewed as a prime example of an international metropolitan city, it has always reminded me of a Lynch film in many ways and this documentary simply strengthens that idea. The cover-up which seems to be going on here shows an extremely eerie underbelly to the facade of Vienna as a classical, safe and problem free city. I highly recommend this film to anyone who values fairness and transparency in the handling of crimes related to homosexuality, which were perhaps 50 years ago viewed as extremely volatile situations in many European cities and are now however largely treated on a level playing field to all other criminal cases in places like New York or London. Vienna needs to catch up fast in the way it treats the LGBT community as well as ethnic minorities and this film definitely shines a glaring spotlight on the former of these two problems.

These parents raise their children and tell them "you can be anything you want to be". Never teaching them the realities of life. The parents soke their own lives in immortality and confuse these growing teenage minds with "religious fortitude" and the pressure to live up to being "accepted" by God, yet hypocrites to their own pressures. Thus confusing the heck out of these boys and girls. These kids become young adults confused about life. Many times abused .. and mom is oblivious to the abuse. Sex, drugs and being utterly lost about life and God in their mid-teens.. these kids then venture out into life often rushing into the riskiest lifestyles .. and this is when mom adopts that moniker "not my son" and "I have to let him be who he wants to be" yet deep inside saying "if I tell him no, I am gonna loose him" ..only making the situation worse. Take all of this and then allowing a young man like this to go to a foreign country ..and you have the story of Aeryn Gillern.

His disappearance is "the end" result of a lost soul. One look at the guy and you see a smiling face, but underneath it all a young man crying out for understanding in a lost/confused life.