Special TEDDY AWARD goes to Jenni Olson

In addition to the awards for current films, the TEDDY Foundation also presents the Special TEDDY AWARD for outstanding achievement and long-term service to a figure from the creative industries whose work has made an exceptional contribution to a wide-scale public perception and reception of queer perspectives in art, culture and the media. Previous winners of the Special TEDDY AWARD include Tilda Swinton, Werner Schroeter, Ulrike Ottinger, Monika Treut, John Hurt, Udo Kier, Christine Vachon, Joe Dallesandro, Evita Bezuidenhout, Rosa von Praunheim and Elfi Mikesch.

This year’s Special TEDDY AWARD goes to the film curator, archivist, filmmaker, writer and LGBT film historian Jenni Olson for her decades of bridge-building work with which she has made queer film history visible and tangible.

Jenni Olson’s enthusiasm for the medium of film manifests itself in innumerable ways. She always finds the right instrument with which to put her curiosity and fascination into practice. She fights for the preservation and distribution of cinematic legacies and orphaned film copies, promotes emerging talents and has created her own cinematic oeuvre. She draws on a queer film network she herself has strengthened and expanded over the decades with her collaborations and influence. Jenni Olson embodies, lives and creates queer film culture.

THE NOMINEES 2021

Das Mädchen und die Spinne

Director: Ramon Zürcher & Silvan Zürcher, Switzerland, 2021 

© Beauvoir Films

09.06. / 22:15 Sommerkino Kulturforum
11.06. / 22:00 Freiluftkino im Filmrauschpalast

Over the course of two days and one night, as Lisa moves out of the apartment she has shared with Mara and into the one where she will live alone, many things will break and some will be repaired.
Like the titular spider’s web, the film has a perfect, fragile geometry. Set almost entirely in interiors, it is also an involuntary summary of the paradoxical age of the pandemic. The transition from one abode to another, and the energy that is released between one story ending and another beginning, puts the entire ensemble into an altered state of grace… mehr

Glück

Director: Henrika Kull, Germany, 2021

Katharina Behrens, Adam Hoya
© Flare Film

09.06. / 21:30 Freiluftkino Kreuzberg
10.06. / 21.30 Freiluftkino Friedrichshagen

Alternating between waiting in the break room, having sex and lining up for the next john: Maria, a self-confident Italian in her mid-twenties, is new to the Berlin brothel where Sascha has been working for a long time. With her tattoos, her piercings and her penchant for writing poetry in a notebook during breaks, she is quite different from the others. The two women are immediately attracted to each other. Maria keeps her cash in a locker in the Berlin State Library. She regularly assures her father on the phone that she is doing well and earning a lot of money. For Sascha, the regional train connects her not only with her old life in provincial Brandenburg but also with her 11-year-old son… more

Guzen to sozo

Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Japan, 2021

© 2021 Neopa/Fictive

15.06. / 19:00 Freiluftkino Museumsinsel
16.06. / 22:00 ARTE Sommerkino Schloss Charlottenburg
17.06. / 22:00 Frischluftkino@Studentendorf

Moon, 66 Questions

Director: Jacqueline Lentzou, Greece / France, 2021

© Berlinale

15.06. / 22:15 Sommerkino Kulturforum
16.06. / 22:00 Frischluftkino@Studentendorf

When a grave illness strikes down her father Paris, Artemis decides to return home to Greece after an absence of some years. Being the sole child of divorced parents, she is the only one who can look after Paris, who requires daily care. Father and daughter embark on a journey into knowledge and revelation, which heralds a new beginning for their relationship… more

The Scary of Sixty-First

Director: Dasha Nekrasova, USA, 2020

© Stag Pictures

19.06. / 22:15 Sommerkino Kulturforum
20.06. / 22:00 Frischluftkino@Studentendorf

In this feature debut by actor and podcast host Dasha Nekrasova, two mismatched roommates discover and relive the murky secrets of their new Upper East Side apartment. The film is as possessed as one of its protagonists: while she finds herself being taken over by the spirits of paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s young victims, the film itself is haunted by Italian “giallo” movies and 1970s psychological horror… more

DOCUMENTARY / ESSAYFILM

Esquí

Director: Manque La Banca, Argentina / Braszil, 2021

© Manque La Banca

There’s a monster in the Nahuel Huapi Lake. In the twilight, it spreads itself out across the surface of the water like a taut cowhide, grasping at its victims with sharp claws. Another monster also lurks in the surroundings of the lake, which is close to Bariloche in the Argentine Andes. It is called Capa Negra: the Black Cape. It haunts the ski slopes by night and should be avoided at all costs.
Monsters from the legends of the Mapuche find their way into Manque La Banca’s feature-length debut Esquí via various twists and turns. Once there, they interact with the film’s other characters… more

Genderation

Director: Monika Treut, Germany, 2021

© Salzgeber

10.06. / 21:30 Freiluftkino Kreuzberg
17.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Biesdorfer Parkbühne

Monika Treut’s Gendernauts was one of the first films to portray the transgender movement in San Francisco. Twenty years after the film screened in Panorama in 1999, Treut seeks out the pioneers of that time. What has changed? How have the lives of the protagonists evolved? San Francisco was once, as Annie Sprinkle puts it, the “clitoris of the USA”, but today the tech industry has a firm grip on the city. Aggressive gentrification has displaced the genderqueer community of yesteryear. Under the Trump administration, hard-won transgender rights are under massive pressure… more

Instructions for Survival

Director: Yana Ugrekhelidze, Germany, 2021

© Yana Ugrekhelidze

13.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Hasenheide
15.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Friedrichshagen

Alexander’s transgender identity means he is obliged to lead a life of secrecy in his home country. Being identified as “female” in his passport means he cannot legally find work, either. Since even a visit to the doctor is a risk for him, he has begun hormone therapy to transition on his own with support from internet forums and the local transgender community. Desperate to escape their hopeless situation and leave the country, Alexander’s wife Mari decides to become a surrogate mother for 12,000 dollars. But their ostensibly pragmatic plan backfires… more

Miguel’s War

Director: Eliane Raheb, Lebanon / Germany / Spain, 2021

© ITAR productions

16.06. / 21:30 Freiluftkino Kreuzberg
19.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Pompeji

In this portrait that is multi-layered both in terms of form and content, a gay man confronts the ghosts of his past and explores hidden longings, unrequited love and tormenting feelings of guilt. Miguel was born in 1963 to a conservative, Catholic Lebanese father and an authoritarian mother from a wealthy Syrian family. Numerous conflicts over his national, religious and sexual identity compelled him to flee to Spain in his early twenties. In post-Franco Madrid where he lived an openly gay existence, his life resembled one long Almodóvarian orgy, full of excess and sexual taboo-breaking. This was followed first by a collapse and then a new beginning… more

North By Current

Director: Angelo Madsen Minax, USA, 2021

© Angelo Madsen Minax

17.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Kreuzberg

Three years after the unexplained death of his niece Kalla, artist and filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his Mormon family’s home in the small town in Michigan where his father’s sawmill is located. His sister Jesse, who had found temporary stability as a mother after a difficult youth and addiction problems, is suspected by the authorities of being responsible, along with her partner David, for the death of their daughter Kalla… more

SHORT FILM

Blastogenese X

Director: Conrad Veit & Charlotte Maria Kätzl, Germany, 2020

  © Veit/Kätzl

11.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Hasenheide
12.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino im Filmrauschpalast

Looking like a rediscovered film reel from the early days of cinema and with its “animal drag” costumes, this Dadaist nature documentary imagines a utopia where any and all life forms are equal. Fabulous creatures that defy the binary classification of male and female and the division between… more

International Dawn Chorus Day

Director: John Greyson, Canada, 2021

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist 202100327_1-1024x576.jpg
  © Kalil Haddad

15.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Hasenheide
16.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Pompeji

On International Dawn Chorus Day (May 3, 2020), birds from six continents join an online video call. They gossip about storms and cats and wires and dates. They share speculations about Egyptian filmmaker Shady Habash, known for his satirical anti-dictator music videos, who died the day before in Cairo’s notorious Tora prison. They talk about Egyptian queer activist Sarah Hegazi, famously incarcerated for flying a rainbow flag at a Cairo concert, now living as a political refugee in Toronto. They don’t realise that… more

Les Attendants

Director: Truong Minh Quý, France / Singapore, 2020

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist 202106201_1-1024x576.jpg
Gérard Thomas & Jean-François Geneste
© Truong Minh Quý – Le Fresnoy

14.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Hasenheide
15.06. / 21.45 Freiluftkino Pompeji

In mining, a slag heap refers to an artificially raised hill consisting of the cleared waste that accumulates during the extraction of raw materials. Birch trees now grow where workers from near and far once went underground to labour hard for very little money. Nowadays, this is a place where men meet to have anonymous sex and share moments of intimacy… more

Luz de Presença

Director: Di Diogo Costa Amarante, Portugal, 2021

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist 202101131_1-1024x553.jpg
Diana Neves Silva © O Verde do Jardim

09.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Hasenheide
10.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino im Filmrauschpalast

One rainy night, Gonçalo sets off to give his lost love one last letter. “Beware of the slippery road!” warns Diana from the street corner. In vain. An accident that is both an end and a beginning… more

More Happiness

Director: Livia Huang, USA, 2021

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist 202109877_1-1024x620.jpg
Joyce Keokham, Tina Wonglu © Livia Huang

11.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino Hasenheide
12.06. / 21:45 Freiluftkino im Filmrauschpalast

During a conversation late at night, a woman asks her mother how to be a good person. As they talk, the woman thinks about an old lover. Seasons change and memories accumulate that bring no respite… more

 

The TEDDY Jury 2021

We are happy to announce this years TEDDY AWARD Jury. This year, three well-known filmmakers and festival organisers will select the winners in the categories of Best Feature Film and Best Short Film from the nominated queer films from the Berlinale, and will present the TEDDY Jury Award.

 

Sylvie Cachin_fotoCredit_© Karine Bénard
Sylvie Cachin_fotoCredit_© Karine Bénard

Sylvie Cachinis a film director whose award-winning films enjoyed success at numerous festivals before she joined Everybody’s Perfect – Geneva International Queer Film Festival as the artistic and general director in 2017. With a university education in art history, history and Italian language and literature (in Switzerland, Rome and Paris) and a master’s degree in film (from Geneva), she has worked in her own company, Lunafilm, as a screenwriter, cinematographer, editor and producer. Driven by a sense of exploration and freedom, she is radically committed to auteur cinema and to queer and feminist gazes. Passionate about experiencing and sharing a wide range of artistic moments, her programming aims at offering a new magic every year.

Samuel Girma, curator in film and art
Samuel Girma, curator in film and art

Samuel Girma is a curator in film and art, a community organizer and an activist based in Stockholm. He is currently undertaking research for an upcoming experimental short film about James Baldwin’s queerness and launching a Black cultural space for film and art. Samuel is a co-founder of the anti-racist, intersectional and feminist platform, Black Queers Sweden. Born and raised in Ethiopia, he emigrated to Sweden at the age of 13, a move that has greatly affected his view on Blackness and the experiences accompanying migration. Much of Samuel’s work, art and writing is inspired by and focuses on the experiences of Black bodies.

Esma Akyel, director of Pink Life QueerFest Turkey
Esma Akyel, director of Pink Life QueerFest Turkey

Esma Akyelis a LGBTI+ and transfeminist activist from Turkey. They are the director of Pink Life QueerFest which was established in 2011 and is the first and only queer film festival in Turkey. The festival is organized by the Pink Life LGBTI+ Solidarity Association which is also the first and biggest trans self-organization group in Turkey. Esma is a board member of ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey. They are also one of the curators of QueerFest Berlin. They have a master’s degree in media and visual studies from Bilkent University.