German filmmaker Justina Jürgensen has started shooting her debut feature, Girls in Uniform (Mädchen in Uniform), an adaptation of one of the most iconic works in German film history. The story, first brought to the screen by Leontine Sagan in 1931, is based on Christa Winsloe’s autobiographical stage play and has long been regarded as a milestone of queer cinema, considered the first all-female film in cinema history and the first to depict a lesbian relationship. The story was later remade in 1958 by Hungarian director Géza von Radványi, starring Romy Schneider and Lilli Palmer.

Set in the early summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I, the film takes place at the Helenenstift, a boarding school for young women of higher social standing. Here, future “soldier mothers” are trained – women whose only duty is to bear sons for the German Empire. Amid the repressive madness of Prussian discipline and order, a strict hierarchy governs the girls, within which newcomer Manuela (Derya Akyol) must find her place. But the 16-year-old wants only one thing: to finally be free, from both this place and the role that Prussian society has assigned her.

To her surprise, she experiences understanding and warmth only from her seemingly aloof class teacher, Elisabeth von Bernburg (Josefine Koenig). Soon, Manuela falls in love with the woman 12 years her senior, unconditionally and obsessively. Elisabeth becomes the sun around which everything revolves, and she appears to slowly reciprocate Manuela’s feelings. A passionate and impossible love story unfolds, with fatal consequences that shake the walls of this patriarchal fortress.

The cast combines rising talents with established names. Alongside newcomers Akyol (Euphorie) and Koenig (Fallen) in the lead roles, the ensemble includes Angela Winkler (The Tin Drum, Suspiria [+lee también:
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entrevista: Christian Schwochow
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entrevista: İlker Çatak
entrevista: Leonie Benesch
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entrevista: Wolfgang Becker
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entrevista: Emily Atef
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entrevista: Ildikó Enyedi
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For her debut feature, Jürgensen also wrote the screenplay, reinterpreting the material through a contemporary lens. She explains: “It has always been my wish to newly adapt this coming-of-age story, which is both deeply personal and universal to me, and to bring the courage and vitality of these women to the screen.”

Shooting began last week and will continue until the end of October in Brandenburg and Bavaria. Behind the camera, Felix Pflieger (Shahid [+lee también:
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entrevista: Florian Henckel von Donner…
entrevista: Ulrich Muehe
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entrevista: Anja Salomonowitz
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Producers Florian Kamhuber and Melissa Byrne, of Nordpolaris, underline the urgency of the project: “We are fascinated by the parallels between society 100 years ago and today. In Christa Winsloe’s material, which Justina lovingly reinterprets, there is so much that is more relevant than ever.”

Girls in Uniform is being produced by Nordpolaris in co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR). The project has received backing from the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (FFF), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) and the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF). Tobis will release the film in German and Austrian cinemas in 2026.