Overview

Examines the creation, context, and significance of the first and only East German feature film about homosexuality. It took forty years for East Germany's state-run studios, DEFA, to produce a feature film about homosexuality: Coming Out. The film's story seems radically ordinary today: a young teacher, Philipp, is gay but cannot accept the truth about his sexuality. He starts a relationship with a fellow teacher, Tanja, but falls in love with a man he meets, Matthias, whose confidence in his own self-understanding is alluring for him as well as a challenge. Acclaimed director Heiner Carow created a film that shows the difficulties, both internalized and external, that queer people faced in East Germany. In a quirk of history, Coming Out premiered in German theaters on November 9, 1989, the very night on which the Berlin Wall was opened, which meant the film was initially overshadowed, to say the least, by the earthshaking political events. Yet it remains a popular film and is regularly screened around the world, including prominently at queer film festivals. Kyle Frackman's book examines the film in both the late East German context of its creation and the international context of its reception. The book will be published in both paperback and Open Access form.

Full Product Details

9781640140899

Table of Contents

Reviews

Frackman's vast knowledge of the production context, archival materials and the actors' own accounts proves spectacularly insightful on every page. He provides indispensable new perspectives for understanding the film's many layers. * STUDIES IN EUROPEAN CINEMA *

Author Information

KYLE FRACKMAN is Associate Professor of German & Scandinavian Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available