Kommt Mausi raus?! (1995)

Twenty-year-old Kati, nicknamed Mausi, is traveling from Hamburg to her rural home in Westphalia to tell her family that she is gay. During the journey, she looks back on the past six months. Kati came to the big city of Hamburg to escape the narrow confines of her village home. Only here does she find the opportunity to come to terms with her own sexuality. In a bar frequented only by women, where at first she feels like an outsider, she meets Jo, who is from Berlin, and has her first affair with her. This step is reflected in a change in her appearance: the long hair has to go! Jo gives Kati a more unconventional bob haircut. When Kati falls in love with Jo, Jo turns her down because she is not interested in longer relationships. Kati is devastated. Jo does, however, get her a temporary job at an organic grocery store, where Kati soon finds other things to think about. There she meets Yumiko, and they begin a romantic relationship. Yumiko is only a little older, but is much more confident than Kati about her identity as a lesbian. It soon bothers her that Kati cannot acknowledge her sexuality or their relationship. Kati finds it difficult to show her love in public. Yumiko puts more and more pressure on her girlfriend, until Kati finally gives in. Embarrassed, she buys a guidebook on how to come out at a bookstore. It says that the first step is always to open up to one’s own mother. But Kati can’t bring herself to tell her mother during their repeated phone calls. Eventually, she decides to go home and try to tell her face to face. When she arrives, a neighbor’s reaction to Kati’s new hairstyle immediately confronts her with the familiar traditionalism of village life. By contrast, Kati’s mother reacts to her finally daring to come out with exaggerated calm, quite unlike what Kati expected. Kati soon realizes, however, that her mother is only pretending, and is disappointed that she seems to carry on as if nothing has happened. Her mother also stubbornly ignores the fact that Kati is now a vegetarian. She also disregards Kati’s warning not to tell her best friend Sonja. Sonja takes the news more casually, but tells it despite her mother’s solemn promise. Within a few hours, the whole village knows. Kati’s older sister Gabi, who is still single despite being of “advanced” age and is unhappy and embittered as a result, bitterly reproaches her, saying that she and their mother, as village residents, will have to endure the gossip to come. That evening, while the small village is holding its marksmen’s festival, Kati and Sonja go to the fair that is part of it. The village teenagers have by now heard the news and amuse themselves by teasing the shy Wolfgang in particular, who has always been in love with Kati. Kati is shunned, but largely spared hostility, since most people have no idea how to deal with homosexuality. Eventually, the two women run into their former French teacher, whom Kati had been in love with as a schoolgirl. The teacher is visibly embarrassed that her daughter keeps asking what “lesbian” means. Things come to a head in the festival tent when Sonja’s new boyfriend, Hartmut, turns up and confronts her for dancing with Kati, and then Wolfgang tries to act like a tough guy by pestering Kati on the dance floor. Kati flees the tent, but her teacher catches up with her and tries to comfort her, while also trying to get closer to her. Sad and disappointed, Kati runs home. Her mother seems to have gotten over her initial shock, and the two have an open conversation, after which her mother even suggests that she bring Yumiko along next time. The next day, Kati sets off on her return journey to Hamburg. At the last moment, Sonja catches up with her at the station and tries to explain why she couldn’t run after her friend the previous evening. Her life is centered here, and she cannot break free from the petty-bourgeois web of village life. When Kati arrives in Hamburg, Yumiko and Jo are there to greet her and congratulate her on coming out successfully, even if it may have gone a little differently from how she imagined.