Teddy Award Berlin - Der queere Filmpreis

Decked out in toreador bolero jackets, paper hats and parade uniforms, four young people dance and sing in a blaze of light and glitter. They are celebrating Teresa’s birthday – with drugs and music in full flow. It will be a long and turbulent night; a decisive night, too, because Teresa is sixteen and still a virgin. Tonight she’s determined to sleep with Stefan, but Stefan either won’t or can’t oblige. Even the red thigh boots Teresa breaks a shop window to get [...] more

Mart Crowley’s "The Boys in the Band" (1968) belongs to the seminal artistic works for the gay community. For the first time gay men were not presented as victims or pathetic losers, loners or as societal waste, but rather as people like you and I. Together with Mart Crowley, who leads the audience through fireworks of historical film snippets and interview bits, Crayton Robey traces the phenomenon of success and the protagonists of that time. Nobody could have predicted it. [...] more

James, Catherine and Patricia. A house on the beach not far from New York. It is1978. A neighbour with a soft spot for James drops by from time to time. James with his big-checked jacket, his camera and his unfinished novel. Catherine with her paintings and her men’s suits. Patricia with her cigarettes. In his directorial debut, Carter has created a tender, associative film about the friendship of three misfits.James used to be a successful TV soap actor until probable mental illness forced [...] more

Gender activist Diane Torr’s worldwide appearances and workshops are now legendary. For the past thirty years, the focus of this performance artist’s work has been an exploration of the theoretical, artistic as well as the practical aspects of gender identity. Katarina Peters’ documentary observes a Diane Torr workshop in Berlin in which a group of open-minded women came together to discover the secrets of masculinity. What makes a man a man and a woman a woman? Precisely when [...] more

Since its inception, the homosexual movement has always numbered gays whose political leanings tend towards the extreme right; these are men who set great store by masculinity and nationalism, who look down on ‘fairies’ and women and propagate anti-Semitism. Writing shortly before his death from Aids at the end of the 1980s, neo-Nazi Michael Kühnen claimed that gay men made better fighters, because having no family made them more independent and braver. My documentary portrays [...] more

Seng, the son of a »Ragman« comics collector, would like to draw comic book super heros, to the distress of his father. In order to learn, he picks up comic books. The day he steals one from a mom and pop store, he is caught by a police officer. The storekeeper helps Seng out of trouble, but trouble seldom comes alone: Seng’s father suddenly shows up at the Indian shop and sees his boy hanging around with the gay storekeeper. Seng has only one more way out, to flee into fantasy [...] more

MAYA DEREN'S SINK explores Deren's concepts of space, time and form through visits and projections filmed in her LA and NY homes. Light projections in Deren's intimate space evoke a former time and space providing entree into the homes of an influential filmmaker we will never know. The film reclaims the spaces that inspired her work in order to share it with audiences. Time and space are collapsed as film locations of the 40’s are re-imagined in the present. Performances [...] more

MIAO MIAO is the title of the film as well as the female protagonist's name. She is a shy exchange student from Japan. Struggling to adjust to her new life in Taiwan, she eventually gets to know one of her female classmates, Ai. Ai is an extroverted girl, who becomes increasingly enamoured with Miao Miao. Oblivious to Ai’s strong feelings for her, Miao Miao only has eyes for the brooding CD shop owner Chen Fei, a young guy with a secret past. He seems determined to block out the world [...] more

17-year-old Gerardo and his friend Bruno have split up. Gerardo finds himself wandering aimlessly about the streets of Mexico City. As he meanders, he is tortured by images: every male body he sees rekindles memories of his lover, who is with him once again in his imagination. However, his wet dreams do not alleviate his suffering, nor does masturbation provide him with any kind of relief. Even his brief, surprising sexual encounters with strangers can’t help him get over the pain of his [...] more

Gay Rights Activist. Friend. Lover. Unifier. Politician. Fighter. Icon. Inspiration. Hero. His life changed history, and his courage changed lives. In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into a major public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights: he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk transformed the very nature of what [...] more

Tommaso is the youngest member of a large family of pasta-makers in Puglia. The Cantone family includes the mother, Stefania, a caring woman who is nonetheless trapped by middle-class conventions; the irascible father Vincenzo, who has high hopes for his progeny; the rather eccentric Aunt Luciana; the rebellious grandmother, who still yearns for her lost love; Tommaso’s sister Elena, a frustrated housewife, and his brother, Antonio, who works at the pasta factory. Today the clan has come [...] more

Claudine and Dylan enjoy a happy relationship for the most part. But Dylan in particular is convinced that queer Berlin must surely have more to offer than monogamous lesbianism. And so the women decide to set off on a journey of discovery: Dylan discovers a new sex club where friendly young women help her to chart her own erotic map. Claudine becomes Claude and, at the hotel where she works, meets mature attractive Helen with whom she explores a new approach to love. Being with Claude makes Helen [...] more

Werner Schroeter was one of the most significant proponents of New German Cinema. Schroeter was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. At the time, he was working for the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf gallery on a musical piece entitled ‘Schönheit der Schatten’ (The Beauty of Shadows) based on the works of Robert Schumann and Heinrich Heine. For Schroeter, oscillating between hope and trepidation, it marked the beginning of a race against time. In her film, Elfi Mikesch, who photographed [...] more

This is the official documentary record of the first Christopher Street Day celebration in Moscow. The events that took place in May 2006 included a CSD parade, which garnered international attention not least because Moscow's mayor Yuri Luzhkov had tried to ban it. This film shows not only the procession that, followed by international guests and observers, made its way through the centre of Moscow from the Unknown Soldier's Memorial on 27 May, 2006, it also contains footage of a three-day [...] more

Doris and Mildred are two white women, one in her mid-50s and the other in her early 60's, who become lovers and decide to set up housekeeping together. Mildred is the younger of the two, a lesbian for most of her adult life, and of upper-middle class origin. She is a tenured professor in the Department of Women's Studies at a large University. Doris, in contrast, never attended college, has never had a steady job or predictable income, and has raised Flo, her grown daughter, single-handedly. [...] more

A story about two Arab brothers living in the dismal London 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 [...] more

When Phil tells Mona that he’s suddenly found his faith, Mona is dumbstruck. The pub where this brother and sister live is their whole world; this is where they drink, regularly, and far more than is good for them. The pub is their niche. It’s the beginning and end of all their dreams. And now here’s Phil, drivelling on about having been revived and being on some mission or other. Religion seems to have provided Phil with a way of escaping from their boring wilderness; but even [...] more