New Year Resolutions are the salt in the soup. What would we do without all these plans, all that, what we want to do, what we plan? Wherefrom would we take the energy to do something at all? Some want go on a diet, Angie wants to get more fresh air and Kate’s resolution was to survive the next year. With our resolutions we sway through the city as if we are young and beautiful, from party to party, we feel golden, wake up in unmade beds, dive into the masses, ask ourselves how long we can go on like this or at what point we should actually stop. We make baskets to calm down, see spring, summer, autumn and winter, meet people, forget others. And at the end we stand there. Again. And make Resolutions. Good ones. For the new year. – But until then, we should just enjoy life.
And everyone who has not heard of it yet, the TEDDY’s resolution for the next weeks is more partys! There will be the grand TEDDY GALA on the 14th of February in the Komische Oper Berlin, where this year’s TEDDY AWARDS will be given away. And the same night we will celebrate in two locations, the Opera and the SchwuZ this year’s winners! And everyone who wants to watch some of the films that compete in this year for one of the bearish prizes can enjoy themselves in the cinema today.
Sebastian
P.S.: Btw. who is Kate?
P.P.S.: Have you actually ever wondered, what our authors look like, when they work on this blog?
FERIADO
(Holiday)
In 1999, Ecuador’s banking system collapsed in the wake of a corruption scandal. These events provide the historical context for sixteen-year-old Juan Pablo’s enforced sojourn with his rich uncle and his family. One night he observes his uncle’s cronies brutally mishandling a man 
they discover tampering with their cars. After Juan Pablo helps one of the victim’s companions to escape, the pair soon discovers they have more in common than this incident. Juan Pablo finds the courage to pursue his hitherto unknown feelings for this attractive boy, even though he has no 
idea if his feelings are reciprocated. These are turbulent times – and not just for the country, for Juan Pablo himself things are beginning to falter.
Cinemaxx 3, 2.00pm
VETRARMORGUN
(Winter Morning)
Maria hesitates when her best friend Birita offers her some pills, but – what the hell? Her mother’s away and they are both desperate to have some fun tonight. They set off and, once the drug takes effect, start euphorically planning how they might finally escape their dreary island. But they only manage to wind up at a party where they continue celebrating. Maria’s pupils are wide open in her delicate face. She may be high, but she doesn’t feel at all well any more. It now transpires that Birita has plans for her friend: she wants Maria finally to have sex with a boy and put a stop to the stupid gossip about her being a lesbian.
Cinemaxx 1, 3.00pm
FELICE QUI È DIVERSO
(Happy to be Different)
An older gay couple in a city in northern Italy talk about their decades-long relationship. A man describes how he was physically abused by his father because of his sexual identity. Gay men from across the social classes and regions of the country have their say and discuss the different conditions which determined gay life in Italy. There is a discomfiting and controversial discrepancy between the reality of the individual accounts and the media coverage. The latter often portrays gay people with a discriminatory irony or is manipulating, especially where intellectuals are concerned. With FELICE CHI È DIVERSO, Gianni Amelio relates a gay history of Italy since fascist times. His analysis of social conditions is both moving and enraging and refuses to allow the audience to remain indifferent.
Cinestar 7, 5.00pm
TITS
(Tits)
Sam, 13, hopes to conceal his breasts with a tightly worn leather belt. This slender teenager is going through a particularly tough time at his authoritarian boys’ school on account of a hormonal disorder. Desperate, he tries everything he can to avoid swimming lessons, but his worst fears are confirmed when he discovers a pink bra hanging from his peg. Nonetheless, Sam manages to find the courage to face up to one of the ringleaders and refuses to be blackmailed. The film displays a great deal of empathy for its protagonist’s fears and anxieties but also exudes charm and subtle humour.
Cinemaxx 1, 6.00pm
IBHOKHWE
(The Goat)
Ukwaluka is an ancient circumcision ritual for young men still widely practiced by the Xhosa in South Africa. It marks the transition from youth to manhood. A boy who has just undergone circumcision sits in semi-darkness in a simple hut on a hill, far away from the village, as prescribed by the initiation ritual. He is covered from head to toe with a paint made from clay which makes him look as white as a goat. This should be a period of healing, but he is cold and in pain. His grandfather, who is supposed to induct him into his new life, has not yet appeared. According to the belief system of the Xhosa, Ukwaluka also purges the boy from homosexual desires, for which there is no place in the world of adults.
Cinemaxx 1, 6.00pm
MONDIAL 2010
(Mondial 2010)
A Lebanese gay couple decides to take a road trip to Ramallah. The film is recorded with their camera as they chronicle their journey. The protagonists and the viewers are invited through the couple’s conversations into the universe of a fading city.
Kino Arsenal 1, 6.30pm
HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO
(The Way He Looks)
Giovana is Leo’s best friend. They spend their afternoons at the pool, awarding points for the level of their boredom and just hanging out. Leo is rather self-contained; even his schoolmates’ barbs can’t dent his sense of his own independence. This blind fifteen-year old 
wants to take control of his own life. The arrival of a new pupil, Leo, at school prompts Leo to reassess his daily routine. As naturally as Leo becomes aware of his feelings for Gabriel, the more he allows himself to feel unsettled by his friend’s tentative advances. The winner of the 
2008 Crystal Bear has the protagonists of his first feature-length drama orbit each other in an emotional universe of fierce attractions.
Cinemaxx 7, 8.00pm
DER KREIS
(The Circle)
Founded in the early 1940s, the network around the magazine DER KREIS (’The Circle’) was the only gay organisation to survive the Nazi regime. Legendary masked balls in Zurich provided 800 visitors from all over Europe. It is there that timid teacher Ernst Ostertag falls in love with drag star Röbi Rapp. Ernst searches for a way to fight for his gayness to be accepted as normal outside the boundaries of ‘The Circle’ network without losing his employment as a teacher.
Stefan Haupt’s new film uncovers the fascinating universe of one of the first gay liberation communities. Enriched by impressive conversational records with Ernst Ostertag and Röbi Rapp, the film depicts a decades-long love story.
Cinestar 7, 8.00pm
UNFRIEND
(Unfriend)
David lives with his grandmother. She supports her grandchild’s gay life, but he prefers to withdraw into his Facebook world. David would do anything for Jonathan and shares his feelings with online friends. When Jonathan posts images of his new lover, David struggles to overcome his 
powerlessness with a feverish obsession to win back his friend. He finds himself in the grip of both real and virtual aspects of his unstable personality.
Altarejos melds real and virtual worlds into a sensual atmospheric arena that confronts us with his protagonist’s deep wounds.
Cubix 7, 8.15pm
AS ROSAS BRANCAS
(The White Roses)
A group of people dance at a sports ground to the music of Supertramp. The siblings take flowers to a grave in the deep snow, wearing floral wreaths in their hair. The father directs them. They embrace one another. Memories are invoked by pictures enclosed inside Gabriel’s, the brother’s, amulet. The mother is dead – how will they fill the void she left behind? Each individual family member tries to find their way, is obliged to redefine their course. Calm are the images and gestures that lead us through this film. Of the utmost importance however, is the question of how to proceed with the mother inside one’s heart.
Cinemaxx 3, 10.00pm
CASTANHA
(Castanha)
52-year-old actor and transvestite João has his best years behind him. He’s ill, has lost both lovers and companions along the way and appears weary, even if none of this stops him from living the way he always has. João shares two rooms with his mother in a housing complex closed off to the outside; at night he performs in small theatres and gay bars.
The film makes just as much time for solitary moments in shabby backstage areas as it does for João’s performances and his unforgettable face, exploring a milieu at once tender, brutal and cruel with precision, its fleeting glamour only skin-deep. Its complex layers of documentary observation and fictional elements coalesce into a story of life and death.
Kino Arsenal 1, 10.30 pm