The filmmaker Carmen Bärwaldt started filming Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, born Lothar Berfelde, in 1995. SONNTAGSKIND. ERINNERUNGEN AN CHARLOTTE VON MAHLSDORF (2018), a very personal and sensitive portrait of an extraordinary Berliner, is the result. It tells of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf’s difficult life, one that was marked in childhood by her father’s violent nature, and later by humiliation and ostracism, but was also filled with affection, friendship and great recognition for her achievements in historic preservation. In the film, von Mahlsdorf talks about being gay in the GDR and her collection of 19th-century Gründerzeit furniture. The Gründerzeitmuseum that she founded in Mahlsdorf and she as an extra featured in in many DEFA films. In the second part of the evening, we will show Heiner Carow’s COMING OUT (1989), the only DEFA feature film about homosexuality, in which she played a barmaid talking about her own coming out. (jh) (2.9.)
