The sex scene: Philipp throws his Nicki away, nestles his skin against the other naked body, then – flicker, flicker, the picture fails. A murmur goes through the cinema, which is actually a school auditorium. contact disorder.
Sometimes it’s not so easy to be true to your sexuality. When you’re young. If you are also a teacher. If you live in the GDR, where being gay wasn’t forbidden in the end, but should remain hidden in the shadows. This is another reason why Heiner Carow’s film “Coming Out” was a sensation. In one scene, the landlord of one of East Berlin’s few gay and lesbian bars says to Philipp: “No one here knows who’s name is and where they live. Everyone is afraid.”
Return of the film to its location
The first homosexual film in the GDR was also the last. The premiere was dissolved in the frenzy of the fall of the Wall, and “Coming Out” was celebrated at the first Berlinale in a united Berlin. The film was shot here in the auditorium of the Carl-von-Ossietzky-Gymnasium in Pankow, where students from the “Aula-Technik-AG” are now looking for the loose contact and hundreds are waiting to see how the sex scene will end. Berlinale Goes Story.
Funny being back at my old school. She no longer smells of floor wax.
The Berlinale is not only a journey around the world, but also to Berlin’s hidden places. Films are shown in the Plötzensee prison, in the Prenzlauer Berg planetarium, in the Neukölln cinema and in a former crematorium in Wedding. The cinema comes out of its own accord – just like in “Coming Out” the cruising area at the fairy tale fountain in the Volkspark Friedrichshain is openly shown for the first time.
So, the film is running again, the sex scene ends happily. Now in the picture is Mr. Kuntoff, my former art teacher. He was an extra in the film – what kind of extra, he once told me during an art break: How he arrived on the second day of shooting in a clean shirt instead of the one from the day before. How he had to go back home. How he came back and realized that he had left his teacher’s bag. As he started again back to go. Until it could finally start. An actor was probably not hidden in Mr. Kuntoff.
Funny being back at my old school. They could do the toilets.
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