The Importance of Being Oscar

Oscar s status as an icon of gay rights has coloured the way in which he is represented in film and TV. His trial and persecution for homosexual crimes became and remains the prevailing lens through which many look at Wilde.

This film depicts a different Wilde, tracing his career and his reputation as it was perceived in his own time. Using dramatic reconstruction and interviews with the likes of Stephen Fry this film looks at Oscar as an individualist, a campaigner for women s rights, a celebrity, and above all as a writer not as the convicted sodomite, nor the queer writer. By detaching him from the gay identity he has been given, this documentary reassesses his work anew, reconnecting with the originality and even genius that his own audience spotted before they knew about his secret life.