Mädchen in Uniform

Mädchen in Uniform (1931) is a German melodrama directed by Leontine Sagan, available to watch online on iFILM. A strict boarding school for the daughters of Prussian officers, where drill stands in for affection, takes in fourteen-year-old Manuela.

Grieving her dead mother, the girl latches onto the one adult who treats the students with kindness: her teacher, Fräulein von Bernburg (Dorothea Wieck). The attachment spills into the open after the school play, when Manuela — dressed as a prince and giddy on punch — announces her love to the whole hall. The headmistress, who runs the place like a barracks, brands the feeling sinful and moves to expel her. Hertha Thiele plays Manuela.

Shot with an almost entirely female cast from Christa Winsloe's play, two years before the Nazis seized power and banned it, this was among the first films to show a young woman's love for another woman without passing sentence on it. It endures as a landmark of early queer cinema. Stream Mädchen in Uniform (1931) online on iFILM.