{ "id": "epzh7j7nvq", "slug": "coming-out-1989-film", "title": "Coming Out (1989 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s", "label": "Drama films 1980s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1986-1989", "label": "Released 1986 to 1989", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1986-1989" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Eastern Europe · 1946 to 2000: Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "path": [ { "id": "geo.eeu", "label": "Eastern Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946", "label": "Eastern Europe · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Coming Out (1989), Heiner Carow's DEFA drama, the first and only East German feature film on homosexuality, premiered the night the Berlin Wall fell and won the 1990 Silver Bear and Teddy Award.", "snippet": "Coming Out (1989), Heiner Carow's DEFA drama, the first and only East German feature film on homosexuality, premiered the night the Berlin Wall fell and won the 1990 Silver Bear and Teddy Award.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1980s.yr-1986-1989", "markdown": "# Coming Out (1989 film)\n\n*Coming Out* is a 1989 East German drama directed by Heiner Carow and produced by DEFA-Studio für Spielfilme, the state-run studio of the German Democratic Republic. It was the first DEFA feature film to deal with homosexuality in the GDR, and it premiered at the Kino International in [East Berlin](https://www.edgepedia.org/east-berlin) on the evening of November 9, 1989, the night the [Berlin Wall](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-wall) was opened.[1](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/coming-out_ea43d4a69c935006e03053d50b37753d) • [2](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808121005070100000)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / production | Heiner Carow; DEFA-Studio für Spielfilme, Potsdam-Babelsberg, 1988–1989[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/filme/filme-suchen/coming-out/) |\n| Premiere | November 9, 1989, Kino International, East Berlin, the night the Berlin Wall fell; interest was so great that two screenings were organized that evening[2](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808121005070100000) • [4](https://www.filmportal.de/nachrichten/feier-zum-20jaehrigen-premierenjubilaeum-von-coming-out) |\n| Distinction | The first and only feature film of the GDR to openly examine homosexuality[2](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808121005070100000) |\n| Runtime | Reported as 113 minutes (DEFA-Stiftung), 112 minutes (Goethe-Institut), and 110 minutes (Deutsches Filmhaus); 35 mm color[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/filme/filme-suchen/coming-out/) • [2](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808121005070100000) • [5](https://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/filme_einzeln/c_einzeln/carow_heiner/coming_out.htm) |\n| Principal cast | Matthias Freihof (Philipp), Dagmar Manzel (Tanja), Dirk Kummer (Matthias), Michael Gwisdek (Achim), Werner Dissel (older man)[6](https://www.filmportal.de/film/coming-out_f1d9850846f841b2bf83290cf220edca) |\n| Key crew | Scenario Wolfram Witt; dramaturg Erika Richter; camera Martin Schlesinger; editor Evelyn Carow; music Stefan Carow[7](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3538/) |\n| Major awards | Silver Bear and Teddy Award at the 1990 Berlin International Film Festival; Konrad Wolf Prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts[5](https://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/filme_einzeln/c_einzeln/carow_heiner/coming_out.htm) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nPhilipp (Matthias Freihof) is a popular, dedicated young teacher in East Berlin in the late 1980s. He begins a relationship with his colleague Tanja (Dagmar Manzel); they move in together, and Tanja becomes pregnant. When Philipp meets his former school friend Jakob (Axel Wandtke), memories of earlier mutual affection return, and he becomes aware of how long he has repressed his sexual orientation. He secretly visits a gay bar, where he meets Matthias (Dirk Kummer), and the two fall in love.[1](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/coming-out_ea43d4a69c935006e03053d50b37753d) • [3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/filme/filme-suchen/coming-out/)\n\nFrom then on Philipp leads a double life: Tanja knows nothing of Matthias, and Philipp tells Matthias nothing of Tanja. The situation escalates when Tanja observes Philipp in a tender embrace with Matthias. Philipp must then come out both to his girlfriend and to his boyfriend; Matthias, deeply disappointed, attempts suicide.[1](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/coming-out_ea43d4a69c935006e03053d50b37753d)\n\nThe film opens with the consequences of that attempt: an ambulance races through East Berlin on [New Year's Eve](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-eve) carrying Matthias to a hospital, where doctors pump his stomach. In a drastic sequence, the actor Dirk Kummer actually had to swallow a tube on camera and fight his gag reflex, without the ordeal being disguised through editing.[2](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808121005070100000)\n\n## Production history\n\n**A long fight for approval.** Director Heiner Carow (1929–1997), one of the leading DEFA directors and the maker of *[The Legend of Paul and Paula](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-legend-of-paul-and-paula)* (1972), developed the idea for the film in the early 1980s after one of his projects was rejected because it featured a gay character. That rejection motivated him to make a film addressing homophobic structures in the GDR.[8](https://cinematheque-leipzig.de/archiv/filme/coming-out/)\n\nDEFA's general director Hans-Dieter Mäde told Carow that such a film would not be produced at the studio. Carow persisted: Wolfram Witt wrote a screenplay without a concrete studio commission, and Carow attached three expert opinions, legal, sociological, and psychiatric, to the finished script. When Mäde still declined to move forward despite the experts' favorable assessments, Carow, in his position as vice president of the Academy of Arts, turned to Kurt Hager, a member of the SED Politburo, who finally signaled his approval.[9](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/coming-out/)\n\nThe script was not submitted to the Ministry of Culture's Film Office for state approval until the end of July 1989, and the premiere had already been pre-scheduled with the PROGRESS film distributor for the then-current cinema year.[10](https://www.umass.edu/defa/sites/default/files/DEFA_s%20Coming%20Out_by%20Dieter%20Wolf.pdf)\n\n## Historical context\n\nThe film arrived at a specific legal and social moment. Paragraph 175 of the criminal code, which criminalized same-sex acts, took effect in 1872 and was sharply tightened under the Nazis in 1935; the GDR returned to the pre-1935 version in 1950, and a new East German criminal code removed § 175 entirely in 1968. A successor provision, § 151, concerning same-sex acts with young people, was struck from the code in 1988. In everyday East German life, however, homosexuality long went unspoken, and fear of social disapproval kept many gay people closeted; a first homosexual interest group formed in East Berlin in 1973, later holding public meetings under the cover name \"Sonntags-Club.\"[9](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/coming-out/)\n\nThe film emerged from activism that had pressed the East German state for decades to treat queer people equally, a struggle that extended even to DEFA.[11](https://www.ica.art/films/coming-out) The film was shot partly on location at real gay hangouts in East Berlin, including the Volkspark Friedrichshain and the bars Schoppenstube and Zum Burgfrieden in Prenzlauer Berg, and it features a cameo by the well-known East German trans activist Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.[7](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3538/)\n\nThe premiere itself became part of the film's history. It took place at the Kino International on the evening of November 9, 1989, and the premiere celebration was interrupted to announce the fall of the Berlin Wall.[12](https://cjr.cineclub.de/filmarchiv/1989/coming-out.html) Because so many people wanted to attend, a second screening was organized that same night.[2](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808121005070100000) The film is now regarded as a unique window into gay life in East Berlin before reunification transformed it.[11](https://www.ica.art/films/coming-out)\n\n## Reception and awards\n\nAt the 1990 [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival) the film won the Silver Bear for the expression of respect for human rights, humanity, and tolerance, and the Teddy Award for best feature film. It also received the Konrad Wolf Prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts (for Carow and Witt), the Critic's Prize for Film from the Association of German Critics, and, at the GDR national feature film festival, prizes for best director (Carow) and best young male actor (Matthias Freihof).[5](https://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/filme_einzeln/c_einzeln/carow_heiner/coming_out.htm) • [7](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3538/)\n\nContemporary and later critics emphasized its honesty and its documentary value. [David Robinson](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-robinson) of *The Times* called it \"an honest, generous film, which observes the conflicting love affairs with sympathy, and resists the temptation of a neat last-reel solution\"; *Variety* wrote that \"the descriptions of East Berlin's gay scene are revelations in themselves.\"[7](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3538/) The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in New York noted thirty years later that the film still offers a nuanced view of the personal and historical struggles of a coming-out story while commenting on the social history of homosexuality under [Socialism](https://www.edgepedia.org/socialism).[7](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3538/)\n\nThe film has circulated widely since: it screened at festivals including Outfest in Los Angeles (2011) and the Torino Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (2009), and a curated DVD release by the DEFA Film Library appeared in 2020.[7](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3538/)\n\n## Legacy\n\n*Coming Out* was the first feature film of the East German DEFA studio that explicitly addresses homosexuality, although DEFA had also produced the documentary *Die andere Liebe*.[13](https://www.goethe-on-demand.de/movies/coming-out) • [15](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/defa-after-east-germany/coming-out-1989/123F2FAD76BFB54D6DDABA304FB62BB2) It gave a public face to the gays and lesbians of East Germany at the moment the state itself was dissolving, and it stands as a seminal work of European gay-themed cinema from the period when the New Queer Cinema movement was emerging in the United States.[14](https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline14/coming-out)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Coming Out, filmportal.de](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/coming-out_ea43d4a69c935006e03053d50b37753d)\n2. [Coming Out, Goethe-Institut film catalogue](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808121005070100000)\n3. [Coming Out, DEFA-Stiftung film details](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/filme/filme-suchen/coming-out/)\n4. [Feier zum 20jährigen Premierenjubiläum von \"Coming out\", filmportal.de](https://www.filmportal.de/nachrichten/feier-zum-20jaehrigen-premierenjubilaeum-von-coming-out)\n5. [Coming Out, Deutsches Filmhaus](https://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/filme_einzeln/c_einzeln/carow_heiner/coming_out.htm)\n6. [Coming Out, filmportal.de (German credits)](https://www.filmportal.de/film/coming-out_f1d9850846f841b2bf83290cf220edca)\n7. [Coming Out, DEFA Film Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3538/)\n8. [Coming Out, Cinémathèque Leipzig](https://cinematheque-leipzig.de/archiv/filme/coming-out/)\n9. [Coming Out, DEFA-Stiftung, Film des Monats](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/coming-out/)\n10. [DEFA's Coming Out, by Dieter Wolf, DEFA Film Library](https://www.umass.edu/defa/sites/default/files/DEFA_s%20Coming%20Out_by%20Dieter%20Wolf.pdf)\n11. [Coming Out, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London](https://www.ica.art/films/coming-out)\n12. [Cineclub film review: Coming Out](https://cjr.cineclub.de/filmarchiv/1989/coming-out.html)\n13. [Coming Out, Goethe on Demand](https://www.goethe-on-demand.de/movies/coming-out)\n14. [Coming Out, Frameline14 (1990) archive](https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline14/coming-out)\n15. [Coming Out (1989) (Chapter 20) - DEFA after East Germany](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/defa-after-east-germany/coming-out-1989/123F2FAD76BFB54D6DDABA304FB62BB2)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1980s › Released 1986 to 1989*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/coming-out-1989-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/coming-out-1989-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Coming Out (1989 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/coming-out-1989-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Coming Out (1989 film)](https://www.edgepedia.org/coming-out-1989-film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/coming-out-1989-film](https://www.edgepedia.org/coming-out-1989-film). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Coming Out (1989 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/coming-out-1989-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Coming Out, Heiner Carow's DEFA drama, the first and only East German feature film on homosexuality, premiered the night the Berlin Wall fell and won the 1990 Silver Bear and Teddy Award." }