Coming Out on the night the Wall fell
A premiere on the night the Wall fell: the only GDR feature film about gay love opened in cinemas on 9 November of all days.
On 9 November 1989, the Kino International in East Berlin was packed to the last seat. On the programme was "Coming Out" by Heiner Carow, the first and only DEFA feature film to deal openly with homosexuality. Demand was so great that the film was shown twice that evening. Hardly anyone in the auditorium had any idea what was happening outside at the same time.
The film tells the story of Philipp, a young teacher who begins a relationship with his colleague Tanja and then falls in love with Matthias, whom he meets in a bar. Philipp was played by Matthias Freihof. The role of Matthias went to Dirk Kummer, who had actually been hired as an assistant director. In a small supporting role, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf stands behind the bar.
This film was anything but a given. The director general of DEFA had told Carow in no uncertain terms that such a film would not be made under him. Carow and screenwriter Wolfram Witt kept writing anyway and attached expert opinions from psychiatry, law and sociology to the script. In the end, the green light came from Politburo member Kurt Hager.
On paper, the GDR was ahead of the West: the last special criminal provision against homosexuals had already been abolished there. In everyday life, however, the subject was largely hushed up.
While the premiere was under way, the first border crossing opened at Bornholmer Strasse after Günter Schabowski's botched press conference. The film crew nevertheless went as planned to the premiere party at the "Zum Burgfrieden" pub, not far from the border. All around them, an entire city was celebrating.
Unlike many late DEFA productions, "Coming Out" became a box office success. At the Berlinale the following February, it won a Silver Bear and the Teddy Award. On anniversaries, the film still returns to the place of its premiere, where two walls fell in a single night.