Dropouts and Dreamers Film Series: COMING OUT (1989)

DCP | 1989 | directed by Heiner Carow | GDR | 113 minutes | German with English subtitles

Free admission. No registration required.

The East German feature Coming Out centers on a young teacher named Philipp as he gradually learns to accept his homosexuality. While Philipp attempts to be in a heterosexual relationship with his colleague Tanja, an encounter with a gay friend from the past pushes him to explore his repressed self. As he wanders through the gay bars of East Berlin, Philipp meets Matthias. This new relationship sets him on a difficult path toward liberating himself from internalized prejudice and accepting his sexual identity. Released on November 9, 1989 — the evening the Berlin Wall fell — Coming Out became the first and last East German film to openly discuss homosexuality.

Post-screening discussion led by graduate students will follow.

This screening is part of the “Dropouts and Dreamers: Films of the Socialist 1980s” series, which explores the experiences of youth in the state socialist world during the transformative period of the 1980s.

Presented by The Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.