Unleaded 95

Bleifrei 95 (“Unleaded 95”), a short film by the directing duo of Emma Hütt and Tina Muffler, seeks out spaces that are occupied by masculinity, and transforms them into queer lesbian spaces. Toilets at a highway exit gas station become a place for anonymous lesbian sex; a mother also uses the restroom for this purpose while her husband and child sit cluelessly waiting for the gas tank to be refilled. No words are needed to get desire up and running. 

The film centers on three longtime friends in their mid-twenties: Aino, Toni, and Lolly. Aino is celebrating her bachelorette party. Toni works at the gas station and was once briefly with Aino; Lolly has moved away, but always has sex with Aino’s mother whenever she returns to her hometown. The secrecy of this on-off relationship again leads to an argument. Lolly goes partying on her own, drifting through the night dazed and inebriated. She meets a few guys, gets high with them, and annoys them with her lesbian lovesickness. 

The film creates a fragile mood. Beneath the healthy surface lie secrets and wounds from the past. In this atmospherically dense film, lightness and heaviness, high spirits and comedowns are often only a blink of an eye away. Will the three of them manage to renegotiate their friendship? They all converge in an old-fashioned bar – in a scene which was filmed in one of the oldest lesbian bars in Germany, La Gata in Frankfurt. 

With ease and enthusiasm, the two directors establish a queer everyday life within a homophobic reality. This peripheral road movie remains pleasantly unpredictable, dealing with intense moments, free spaces beyond bourgeois norms, and the beauty and fragility of friendship in times of upheaval. (Karin Cerny) 

Translation: John Wojtowicz