Uferfrauen - Lesbian Life and Love in the GDR

Following the oral history method, director Barbara Wallbraun places the personal experiences and feelings of her six interviewees at the center of her film. The ways each dealt with repression and harassment - by the state and by the people around them - are as different as the women themselves. It is precisely through this deliberate subjectivity that Wallbraun manages to paint an overall social picture. "Lesbisk synlighet, eller osynlighet! Som ofta är fallet i historieskrivningen om homosexuella och queera grupper lämnas lesbiska kvinnor därhän och, om de alls nämns, är de antingen bara 'inkluderade' eller nämns som en sidoanteckning. En mycket viktig och vacker dokumentär om lesbiskt liv i DDR. Försöken att skapa nätverk och helt enkelt leva ett lesbiskt liv, alltid i fara för att bli spionerade på och infiltrerade av Stasi." (Sooner curator Toni Karat) "None of these women allowed themselves to be broken. They look back, not without pride, on their past and the path they paved for themselves in an unfree society." (kino-zeit.de)

Keywords

  • #AccelerateAction | Internationaler Frauentag 2025
  • déjà-vu FILM
  • Label: docfilm42
  • Made in Germany
  • Politics: Human Rights
  • Queer Being in Dictatorships
  • Queerness: Living Out Loud
  • Screen: Germany
  • Toni Karat
  • Topic: Oral History
  • civil society
  • coming out
  • gdr
  • history
  • women

Director

  • Barbara Wallbraun

Documentary, Queer


1h 56min


12

DE

Germany
2020
Six very different lesbian women talk about their lives and loves in the socialist system of the GDR.

Six very different lesbian women talk about their lives and loves in the socialist system of the GDR.


Following the oral history method, director Barbara Wallbraun places the personal experiences and feelings of her six interviewees at the center of her film.


The ways each dealt with repression and harassment - by the state and by the people around them - are as different as the women themselves. It is precisely through this deliberate subjectivity that Wallbraun manages to paint an overall social picture.


"Lesbisk synlighet, eller osynlighet! Som ofta är fallet i historieskrivningen om homosexuella och queera grupper lämnas lesbiska kvinnor därhän och, om de alls nämns, är de antingen bara 'inkluderade' eller nämns som en sidoanteckning. En mycket viktig och vacker dokumentär om lesbiskt liv i DDR. Försöken att skapa nätverk och helt enkelt leva ett lesbiskt liv, alltid i fara för att bli spionerade på och infiltrerade av Stasi." (Sooner curator Toni Karat)


"None of these women allowed themselves to be broken. They look back, not without pride, on their past and the path they paved for themselves in an unfree society." (kino-zeit.de)

Cast & Crew