Die Klosterschülerinnen (1972)

The venerable Mother Superior runs a strict regime at her Bavarian convent school, where modesty and piety, paired with nineteenth-century moral-theological views, are the most important principles to be instilled in the growing girls as they set out into life—girls who, in the blasphemous world “out there,” are exposed to all kinds of temptations. The roughly 120 convent pupils are taught by devout nuns. But the young, life-hungry girls do not take all this very seriously: they are at an experimental stage, want to try everything that is fun, and that naturally includes love, sex, and the pleasures of their own bodies as well as those of peers of both sexes. Gundula and Edith, for example, are such precocious little minxes, eager to explore life beyond the convent walls. One night, they shed their demure school uniforms and dress in a modern, provocative way, just as their peers outside do. They climb over the school wall and end up at the nearest disco, hoping to meet a few nice, willing boys, such as Tommy Decker. But when they are driven back behind the convent walls in a rickety student’s VW, they have to realize that such a small, uncomfortable car is a poor substitute for a bed. Harriet and Gerda, meanwhile, want to find out in practice whether love between women is perverse, masturbation a sin, and sex between two unmarried people truly fornication, as Sister Barbara claims with absolute conviction. The two pretty girls enjoy themselves together and come to entirely different conclusions. But some girls also have to undergo terrible experiences: the teacher Frisch abuses her position of authority and drugs a girl so she can act out her lesbian desires with her.