Welcome to the companion site to the DEFA Film Library’s 30th-anniversary rerelease of Coming Out on DVD. This website is intended as a resource for anyone wanting to learn more about the film and to use it in teaching or for learning more about the film and its production. If you can understand German, more resources are available on the Resources page.
Coming Out was the first and only feature film to focus on homosexuality produced in East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, GDR). Created by acclaimed filmmaker Heiner Carow (1929–97), Coming Out tells the story of Philipp, a young teacher who comes to terms with himself and his sexuality. His love interests in the film, Tanya and Matthias, play different roles in helping him to discover and accept his homosexuality, which he has long denied. Long awaited especially by East German lesbians and gay men who wanted to see their reality reflected on screen, Coming Out had its premiere on November 9, 1989. On that same day, East Germany unexpectedly opened its borders, allowing its citizens to leave the GDR. This day marks the fall of the Berlin Wall, the symbol of Germany’s division and totalitarian rule.
The only previous East German film to address homosexuality was The Other Love (Die andere Liebe), a short documentary directed by Helmut Kißling and Axel Otten and released in 1988. The Other Love was intended as a first introduction of lesbians and gay men and the topic of homosexuality to the wider East German public. Appropriate for the documentary format, The Other Love approached the topic as a knowledgeable neutral mediator with voiceovers providing facts about the lives of East Germany’s homosexual citizens. Interviews with lesbians, gay men, and their family provided more personal information, including emotional content, aimed at humanizing and making the challenges and discrimination faced by lesbians and gay men, like heterosexism and bullying, more real for the film’s viewers.
Coming Out and What It Tells Us
Coming Out delivers a poignant story Philipp and his difficulties in accepting himself. In some ways, the film follows the pattern of many so-called coming out films, which resemble coming of age narratives. The story first joins the main character’s life amid all its normalcy. Something happens to disrupt that normalcy and cause the character to recognize something hidden or to experience some development. Philipp’s reality includes his life as a high school teacher and eventually his relationship with another teacher at his school, Tanya. The unexpected catalyst for change comes when Jakob, Tanya’s friend and a love interest from Philipp’s past, visits Tanya and disrupts any sense of equilibrium that Philipp may have had. His difficulties are compounded, and his life’s future possibilities are expanded, when Philipp meets Matthias, whom viewers first saw at the beginning of the film in the aftermath of his attempted suicide.
Each of the three main characters—Philipp, Tanya, and Matthias—illustrates a different component of the consequences of the discrimination and repression that shape Philipp’s life. Philipp’s position in this is clear: the uncertainty he has continued to experience in his life as well as the self-doubt and the perpetual concern about his being a gay teacher have contributed to his insecurity and inability to maintain a successful relationship. He faces the judgment of everyone around him except, perhaps, his students—an almost unique community of support in the film’s depiction. The only other circumstance resembling the connections offered by Philipp’s students is the portrayal of the gay bars, where Philipp finds other people like him with similar experiences.
Tanya’s role in the film is often downplayed or ignored due to the primary focus on gay men’s lives. It is her friend, Jakob, who sparks Philipp’s latest realizations and brings about the exploration of the gay scene in East Berlin. Tanya becomes Philipp’s wife and gets pregnant. Frustrated and uncertain from Philipp’s preoccupation and absence, Tanya is the embodiment of family members, partners, and spouses of queer people struggling with their identities. This character demonstrates that there are other consequences of social discrimination; homophobia and heterosexism do not affect only one group of people. Everyone suffers from these pervasive forms of oppression in different ways.
Finally, Matthias, like Philipp, is well acquainted with the mechanisms and effects of homophobic prejudice. Coming Out begins following Matthias’s suicide attempt, which he tells the attending doctor was because of his homosexuality. When he finds and connects with Philipp, Matthias believes that he had found someone special with whom he could have a relationship, beyond the cruising and casual sex that the film shows the audience is a part of gay life. Philipp breaks his heart, and Matthias finds solace with one of Philipp’s students.
Beyond the experiences of the characters, Coming Out also shows those characters in the context of East German society. What one sees in the film is a society with distinct troubles. One of those social problems is a proliferation of violence. In the film one sees neo-Nazis assault a Black German man, an attack that Philipp tries to stop. Later in the film, we see a few men verbally and then physically assault a gay man in a subway station; unlike in the earlier incident, Philipp flees and avoids intervening, as it is too personal for him. Finally, another social problem is the pervasive surveillance and social control that is a product of a repressive society. Philipp is judged by the official structure of his school administration and his colleagues, while his mother’s inability to accept him leaves Philipp lacking both social and familial support.
Coming Out is a special film that remains relevant for viewers more than three decades after its release. Although the film depicts the experiences of characters living in East Germany under “real-existing socialism,” its portrayal of social discrimination and difficulties facing queer people finds connections to contemporary viewers in many national contexts. Coming Out is regularly featured in queer film festivals or special screenings, for its queer subject matter and its proximity to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of East Germany, and the end of the Cold War.
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