Friday 17.02.2012
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As if there was no tomorrow
Tonight is the night, because tonight this year’s TEDDY AWARD CEREMONY takes place and we know it will awesomely beautiful. But afterwards? What comes after the party, the flush, the excess? – The morning after. The black hole, the hangover breakfast, the grey sky over Berlin. But what is tomorrow, if we have tonight! Therefore at least today we live as if there was no tomorrow! As just as the protagonists of today’s movies do: Porn actors try to put some order into their lives, others rather take care of animals, and again others take care of their brothers. Furthermore we have movies about this year’s SPECIAL TEDDY AWARD winners Mario Montez and Ulrike Ottinger. And for sure we bringe you new thrilling interviews, filmclips and all of today’s movies in the programme overview.
CHERRY BLOSSOM GIRL |
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Eighteen-year-old Angelina works at a launderette and is determined to make something of her life. After earning a bit of cash posing for nude photos she uses the money to escape her white trash background and dysfunctional family and run off to San Francisco with her best pal. After several jobs she gradually drifts into San Francisco’s porn industry where, using the moniker CHERRY, her naïve yet sexy aura soon brings her success and the opportunity to explore her own sexuality. This self-confident young woman also has to cope with the many prejudices that exist for someone in her line of work; a lawyer who wants to ‘save’ her turns out to have problems with addiction. Finally, she finds an understanding friend and partner in her director, who has similar problems with her own lover. Before long, Angelina decides to try her hand at directing her own porn film. In his cinematic debut, director Stephen Eliott’s creates a portrait of a young woman in search of herself and her place in the world that is devoid of false morality and voyeurism and approaches its myth-laden topic of porn with a gaze that is fresh and dispassionate.
CinemaxX 7, 10.30 am |
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The Revolution is my Boyfriend |
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‘Born activist’ Vito Russo was a New York film critic, screenwriter and LGBT activist. Over decades he was to become one of the most charismatic, eloquent and inspiring personalities of the American gay movement post-Stonewall. He gained fame for his live lecture performances of his 1981 book The Celluloid Closet which explored the representation of homosexuality in film and has today become a standard work on this topic, in which Russo could ideally combine his love of show business with radical gay politics. He was a guest of the Berlinale’s Panorama in 1984 for the screening of the film of the same title for which directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman won a Teddy Award in 1996 and subsequently an Academy Award. A rich selection of archive material and statements from friends and activists has been brought together to form VITO, the portrait of an energetic and indefatigably active individual who remains an indispensable figure of queer memory. Vito Russo died of Aids in 1990. CineStar 7, 2.30 pm |
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SPECIAL TEDDY AWARD I: Mario Montez |
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A boat, a lake, a lazy summer afternoon, how to look glamorous in nature. Legendary, irresistible, indestructible US underground legend Mario Montez dissects Hollywood icon Joan Crawford’s ridiculous fashion tips: ‘such crap!’ - A LAZY SUMMER AFTERNOON WITH MARIO MONTEZ Colosseum 1, 3.30 pm |
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SPECIAL TEDDY AWARD II: Ulrike Ottinger |
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ULRIKE OTTINGER, THE NOMADE FROM THE LAKE, is an exceptional filmmaker and artist. It all began on the shores of Lake Constance where Ulrike Ottinger was born and where she still often spends time. Filmmaker Brigitte Kramer chose to begin her film at Lake Constance since she too shares Ottinger’s birthplace and a great love of these waters. This is also where the filmmaker’s own artistic development began, not least as a result of her encounter with Ottinger and her work. Using this common ground as a starting point for an exploration of Ottinger’s substantial oeuvre, this documentary provides a keen insight into the artist’s life and work. Ulrike Ottinger will be honoured with this year’s SPECIAL TEDDY AWARD. Magnus Rosengarten speaks in an interview with Ulrike Ottinger about her filmmaking and with Brigitte Kramer about her documentary on Ulrike Ottinger. Colosseum 1, 3.30 pm |
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Haram* |
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London, two Arab brothers living in the dismal borough of Hackney. Sensitive fourteen-year-old Mo idolises his nineteen-year-old brother Rashid who is able to support the family as a shrewd businessman and member of a gang of drug dealers. Rashid hopes that his younger brother Mo will choose a different path in life. When a rival gang stabs to death his best friend, Rashid begins to ask himself some hard questions about the life he is leading. An encounter with a photographer named Sayyid opens up a whole new world and new possibilities. Mo’s whole world collapses when he discovers that his adored brother is gay. No sooner does the gang discover the truth than they are baying for Rashid’s blood. Mo will have to face his own prejudices if he wants to save his brother’s life. Cubix 9, 5.00 am
* Arabic: Forbidden.
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All I've got is a Memory |
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UNTER MÄNNERN – SCHWUL IN DER DDR (AMONG MEN – GAY IN THE GDR) addresses the question of how gay men lived and could live their lives under ‘real socialism’. In this documentary we meet six men who talk openly about their social and intimate experiences, some for the first time, and get to know several individuals who could hardly be more diverse. At one end of the scale is Frank Schäfer, a barber and a resourceful individualist; at the other, Eduard Stapel, an theologist who founded a GDR-wide network of homosexual associations and upon whom the Stasi firmly set its sights. All this happens from the perspective of the director Ringo Rösener who was born in the GDR but is too young to have really experienced it. He is on the search for memories of a country, which does not exist anymore. CineStar 7, 5.00 pm |
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Fight for Emancipation |
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It is exactly twenty years since the celebrated Afro-American poet and writer AUDRE LAURDE died in 1992. According to her own description of herself she was: ‘a lesbian, a feminist, black, a poet, mother and activist’. In the 1980s Dagmar Schultz, who at the time was lecturing at the John F. Kennedy Institute at Berlin’s Freie Universität, invited Audre Lorde to Berlin as a visiting professor. This move was to have an enduring influence, for Lorde soon became co-founder and mentor of the Afro-German movement. In her documentary portrait, Dagmar Schultz distils hitherto unpublished and often very personal material of Lorde that portrays her among her Berlin women friends, fellow-travellers and students, many of whom she encouraged to begin writing. Our reporter Magnus Rosengarten talks in an interview with the filmmakers about their research for the movie and their personal contact with Audre Lorde. Cubix 7, 5.30 pm |
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Grüne Hornissen |
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A mashup of Otto Preminger’s film EXODUS about the founding of the state of Israel, with the voices of Canadian activists who take part in the Gaza flotilla raid in their boat. In typical comic book hero style, the Green Lasers fight against oppression and injustice in the Gaza strip: GREEN LASER.
Cubix 7, 5.30 pm |
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Paradise Lost |
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Saigon, this pulsating urbane megacity spells hope and desire for Khoi, who has escaped from his rural background. His search for somewhere to live brings him in contact with Dong, a smooth operator who agrees to take him in. At Dong’s apartment Khoi meets Dong’s boyfriend, Lam. The two men steal everything the newcomer owns and disappear. Dong dumps Lam, who goes back to life as a streetworker. Khoi earns a crust as a carrier. Then one day Khoi happens to run into Lam, who is keen to make good after having stolen Khoi’s belongings. A fragile love affair ensues. But Dong is determined to destroy the tender romance between these two lost souls… The director Vu Ngoc created with LOST IN PARADISE an modern asian fairy tale. Somewhere between unbearbale lightness, fragile emotions and human abysses grows the story of two young men and their struggle for happiness. CineStar 3, 5.45 pm |
Into the wild |
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After serving time in prison, Francine settles down in small-town North America. Through a series of temporary jobs, she tries to regain a foothold in society. However, this security proves just as elusive as the connections she tries to forge with people in the town. As her human relationships falter, Francine looks to animals for support, a development that leads her in a tragically wrong direction. Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky’s fiction debut FRANCINE focuses on the title figure. Oscar winner Melissa Leo conveys the longings and woes of the distressed protagonist with remarkable precision. As the protagonist moves through the film’s impressive locations, her path through life is much like an orbiting satellite: detached, lonely and ultimately destined to crash. CineStar 8, 7.30 pm |
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Of knights and men |
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Carlos is spending the summer in the country with his family in order to help out with things. Perhaps he won’t even be returning to the capital, as economic prospects are hardly rosy there either. Extremadura on the other hand, sparsely populated and for a long time one of the most neglected regions in Europe, is experiencing a tentative upturn. Tourism and modernisation rub shoulders with almost archaic customs and a conservative, mostly elderly population here. “You don’t look like you’re from here”, remarks Juan when they meet. “I’m not from here“ replies Carlos, “I live in Madrid.” Whether to be from here or elsewhere is a decision that many here have to make.
SLEEPLESS KNIGHTS depicts all this in casual, unobtrusive fashion, in images that have at times a truly otherworldly beauty. The central theme is the love story between the newly returned Carlos and the young policeman Juan.
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_230x129.jpg "MY BROTHER THE DEVIL")
_230x157.jpg "UNTER MÄNNERN - SCHWUL IN DER DDR")
_230x153.jpg "SLEEPLESS KNIGHTS")
events
TEDDY GALA |
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Tonight is the night! This year's TEDDY AWARD will be given away during the big TEDDY GALA CEREMONY in the former airport Tempelhof. Everybody who has no ticket yet: Hurry up! Because this event with an awesome party afterwards should not be missed! The who is who of the evening you will find here: TEDDY GALA.
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In between |
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ROAD MOVIE examines contemporary life in Palestine, where residents of the West Bank are confronted with a segregated and impossible road system made all the more problematic and unpredictable by shifting political currents. The subjects of the films – from Palestinian ambulance and taxi drivers to Israeli settlers and human-rights activists – offer a unique and unconventional glimpse into the human landscape of this volatile land. The installation is full of arresting and vibrant images, from the deserts of the Jordan Valley to the circumference of Jerusalem.
Gutschow-Haus, 11 am - 8 pm
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A world of ones own |
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The video montage A WORLD OF OUR OWN weaves together stories of various Cosmo-figures, female explorers of worlds known and unknown, actual and fictional freedom fighters across different times and places, who assemble for a future mission in the world’s largest financial centre. They are linked through time and space through a montage of various elements, such as drawn animation, video footage shot by the artist, and found footage, combined with sound snippets from different sources, interview excerpts, radio transmission, music, written text, again animated. Both elusive and concrete the installation addresses current political struggles and feminist legacies, the past seeping into the present and enabling a different future. Kunstsäle Berlin, 11 am - 8 pm |
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Small from canada |
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“Beuys had his uniform, Warhol his silk screen, Steve Reinke has his voice. It is a kind of signature, a costume for the masquerade of personality, but more importantly: a guarantor of pleasure.” Mike Hoolboom THE TINY VENTRILOQUIST is a suite of shorter works. In these works, Reinke tries on and discards many voices, stances, histories, and ideologies. His style ranges from drawn animation to home and diary video to found footage. Connecting the wide range of stylistic approaches is Steve Reinke himself, acting as the narrator of his darkly humorous miniatures. Together they form a machine for draining all meaning from the world. Gutschow-Haus, 2.00 - 6.00 pm |
_Kopie.jpg "A WORLD OF OUR OWN")
