Lesbian Traces in Film


A Short Resume

The politically motivated women’s films of the seventies / eighties are far away. The short flickering of lesbian orientated film and television productions from the beginning and middle of the nineties have also faded away. Single signs to cover the (latest) women’s / lesbian movement or with its history drown in conventional mainstream productions, that more and more often build in lesbian parts into more or – mostly still – less nice stories. Samanta Maria Schmidt even speaks of a “casualness of the lesbian on verbal level”.1

It seems to be the trend to treat relationships between women similarly to heterosexual relationships. Even if the productions leave quantity as well as quality to be desired it leaves hope, that film traditional depiction of couples will be reformed also in the heterosexual part. Lesbians still do not play an decisive part in German film productions, neither in front nor behind a camera. Is there nothing (more) to tell about “lesbian live in itself”? Or does nobody want to hear or see (more of) it? It is only produced, that brings in money. There also seem to be no gender debates in German films; the question of gender is widely ignored. That is how the future of the national (German-speaking) film-making limits itself. Captured in a black hole nothing gets outside, that would be worth to discover.


© Ingeborg Boxhammer (Bonn 2005)
Anke Sauerbrey (Translation, Bonn 2005)




[1] Samanta Maria Schmidt, Lesbenlust und Kinoliebe. Kirchlinteln 2005, p. 21.