Coming Out

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64014-089-9
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 9, 108 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 130 mm x 186 mm, Gewicht: 113 g

Reihe: Camden House German Film Classics

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.

This book is openly available in digital formats under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Frackman, Kyle

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies: Homosexualität, LGBTQ+
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmproduktion, Filmtechnik
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Heiner Carow and Film's Revolutionary Potential

Homosexuality in East Germany

The Distress of Coming Out

Melodrama and Its Excesses

Romance and the Love Story

Philipp and Tanja's Courtship

Queer Exploration

Change and Upheaval

A New Beginning

Coming Out and Reconciling Identities

Acceptance

Release, Reception, and Legacy

Credits

Notes

Über Autor(innen)

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