It’s safe to say that there are more stories being told by queer filmmakers than ever before, and which are even more diverse in recent years not just in terms of representation, but also in narrative and form. But queer people have existed forever—even in film!—and it’s imperative to immerse ourselves in our own history. Pioneers of Queer Cinema, available through Kino Lorber’s virtual cinema Kino Marquee, highlights classic queer films that paved the way for our current landscape, many of which have been less than accessible to modern audiences—and which explore themes of gender and sexuality that ring just as true now as they did when they were made.
Heralded as one of the earliest lesbian feature-length films ever made—and certainly the only one produced in Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party—Mädchen in Uniform is more than deserving of its radical cinematic legacy. Adapted from Christa Winsloe’s play Gestern und heute, Mädchen in Uniform explores a forbidden relationship between Manuela (Hertha Thiele), a new student at an all-girls boarding school, and one of her teachers (Dorothea Wieck). Rumors of their relationship wreak havoc on the boarding school’s elite image—and they are forced to face the consequences of the love that has been deemed shameful by the institution, be it through expulsion or treatment of this supposed illness. Mädchen in Uniform is an interesting piece of the classical queer film canon as it refuses to lean into the territory of unrequited love—a trope that has only gained in popularity in recent years. Instead of one woman pining over the other to no avail or at the risk of being seen as predatory, the film ruminates on the complexities of a first love that is returned. The film doesn’t critique their relationship but the persecution of it, and the fundamental inequities that stem from someone being allowed to wield power over another.
