How was the TEDDY AWARD Opening Party at SchwuZ Club you ask? Why, it was grand, as expected. A celebration full of Sex, LOVE, and Rock’n’Roll. The arriving guests received a warm welcome in form of a free drink that could be won by spinning the wheel of fortune. Cheers to the colorful Teddy!
http://instagram.com/p/yxl1JKw6Sv/?modal=true
Panorama-Curator Wieland Speck joined the party and introduced to international TEDDY AWARD Jury. From Serbia and Argentina to Botswana, the jury work to get queer films the recogntition they deserve all over the world.
http://instagram.com/p/yx3YTvw6QP/?modal=true
A special highlight was the Sissy Show presented by the one and only Pansy. The dragqueen animated the audience and invited to sing along (…my heart will go oooon aaaand oooon…). It was hot and steamy!
http://instagram.com/p/yx8K5Tw6YT/?modal=true
http://instagram.com/p/yx8Zqww6Yj/?modal=true
Besides all the partying, there were also real issues to adress. The infostands of Queer Amnesty Berlin, TransInterQueer e.V. and the Schwules Museum concerned trans*issues. A special focus was on the whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who has been denied the right to the hormon therapy she has been asking for in prison. The organisation Free Chelsea Manning Berlin is fighting for her and was there at the party.
http://instagram.com/p/yxqn16Q6bH/?modal=true
The TEDDY AWARD social media campaign #shutuphaters is fighting against hate speech of any kind. At the Opening Party, there was a corner where everyone had the chance to be photographed with their personal messages to all the haters. The results can be seen on shutuphaters.org. We invite everyone to join the campaign, more people = stronger the statement!
http://instagram.com/p/yxcFD1w6Sa/?modal=true
It was a grand night with amazing people, great music and a magnificent atmosphere. Thank you and see you next friday at the Closing Party! Until then, get some rest!
Yesterday, the big TEDDY Opening Party took place in Schwuz – and everyone who has not returned home yet can directly go to the cinema now!
What is more beautiful than getting over a hangover while watching the moving images? The bright pictures will take you to the furthest corners of this world and there will be sad stories from Germany, a dreamy love from the Baltic Sea and a view into Spain in the year 2053. And in the evening? Well, it will go on with 54, the director’s cut of the world famous party movie – so, get up and get going to the Berlinale cinemas and afterwards the next party is awaiting you. After all it is Saturday in Berlin!
The new year is still young and there is already the perfect reason to throw overboard all the good resolutions. It’s Berlinale and so finally it’s TEDDY time. Beside the films and the stars, there are the parties which provide topics of conversations at these days. The best party traditionally takes place at the SchwuZ. And today is the day. The TEDDY celebrate grand opening party. This is the perfect opportunity to fall down in old habits and revive old vices. Of course, we will introduce the this year’s international jury tonight.
For all those who are currently panicking because they don’t know what should they wear tonight here are some tips to come down – our today’s TEDDY films.
France 2015
85′
Director: Véronique Aubouy
Cast: Julia Perazzini, Nina Langensand, Megane Ferrat, Pauline Leprince
Annemarie Schwarzenbach was a shimmering figure of bohemian society of the 1920s. A talented writer, she was lesbian, addicted to drugs, a globetrotter, bewitchingly androgynous and – much to her domineering Nazi-loving mother’s chagrin – also anti-fascist. Berlin photographer Marianne Breslauer described her as the most beautiful creature she had ever encountered. Schwarzenbach died young at the age of 34. She remained forgotten until the 1980s when her books began to be republished and her biography reconstructed. Director Véronique Aubouy does more than merely save Annemarie Schwarzenbach from obscurity, she brings her into the present. Sixteen young actors of both genders slip into different roles in order to play Schwarzenbach, her friends and lovers. Increasingly fascinated by the pull of this figure, their oscillations between genders becomes a joint project. Something that begins as an audition in which the young actors are asked to attach their biographies to that of the writer, ends in a dance of relationships in which the borders between reality and dramatization are blurred.
Germany 2015
89′
Director: Rosa von Praunheim
Cast: Hanno Koffler, Andreas Marquardt, Luise Heyer, Marion Erdmann
When karate champ Andreas Marquardt thinks about himself he feels nothing but bitterness: ‘I refused to feel anything. I was cold, like a block of ice, I couldn’t give a shit about anything.’ When he was two years old, his father poured water over him and put him outside on the balcony in subzero temperatures. Another time he crushed his hand. When he was six, his mother began to seduce him: ‘Your prick belongs to me, my little friend.’ Later, Andreas became a pimp and earned millions – until he wound up behind bars. Lovely Marion was the only one who stood by him, who went on the game for him, and gave him the courage to go on … Interspersing interviews with dramatized scenes from Andreas Marquardt’s biography, Rosa von Praunheim describes a life that veers from fear and humiliation to contempt, hatred and brutality. Filmed in stylised sets replete with photographic wallpaper that recall West Berlin décor at the time, the film provides a shocking insight into the deep wounds caused by domestic violence and one man’s desperate attempts at resistance. Is it possible to break out of such a vicious circle? And how does Andreas Marquardt cope with these experiences today?
Brazil 2015
83′
Director: Filipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolon
Cast: Mateus Almada, Maurício José Barcellos, Elisa Brites, Francisco Gick
Having been good friends for years, Martin and Tomaz now find themselves on the cusp of adulthood. Martin’s father sends his son to southern Brazil, where the family is from, to sort out an inheritance matter. Tomaz accompanies him there. For both of them, the brief excursion to the coastal town becomes a journey into themselves. It’s not just the sea that nearly reaches the doors of the country house which exerts a slow, yet relentless pull on them – the two friends have the same effect on one other. Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon’s richly atmospheric, autobiographically inspired feature debut follows its two main characters on a weekend that will change their relationship forever. Beira-Mar is a wander through the borderlands between love and friendship, exploring sexual orientation and personal identity. The outstanding camerawork picks up on the protagonists’ complex emotional states in the same way as the soundtrack captures the roaring of the sea: gentle and powerful in equal measure. Always on an equal footing with the subject and the characters, the film creates a moment of magic and tenderness. Looking for love and finding it are sometimes one and the same thing.
In the world of fetishes there’s a niche for every type of proclivity. Arwed caters to a special type of customer: he runs a private prison where he is happy to find all sorts of ways to bully and victimise his paying guests on the other side of the bars. As prison director he is master of ceremonies; during the course of one week, he and his partner Dennis help fulfil their prisoners’ wildest fantasies. The inmates treat the days and nights they spend in handcuffs and leg irons as a real holiday – here at last is a place they can finally switch off and relax. The role play looks a bit like improvised theatre, especially when director Arwed and his assistant Dennis plan the next day’s performance in the bare cells and corridors of their institution. But even when using the whip these ‘torturers’ never forget to be humane and, in spite of their tough prison warder guise, they are fully aware, in way that is almost caring, of their responsibility for those in ‘detention’. Director Jan Soldat poses his questions offscreen, in the same interview style that he adopted in his short films.
Brazil 2014
119′
Director: Lirio Ferreira
Cast: Daniel de Oliveira, Caroline Abras, Sandra Coverloni, Rômulo Braga
A ship with a circus on board approaches an island in the South Atlantic. During the evening performance the ringmaster and illusionist Kaleb presents an artiste named Zolah who immediately wins over the hearts of everyone in the audience. Zolah is Pedro, who left the island twenty years previously at the age of nine. His reunion with his mother Rosa and his introverted sister Raquel brings the well-travelled acrobat face to face with old wounds and buried dreams. Raquel’s world is the sea, and she always retreats to its depths. She wishes that Pedro could be a part of it. Questions begin to present themselves to Pedro. Why did his mother send him away all those years ago? Whilst islanders and circus artistes enjoy a lively exchange, Pedro and Raquel seek out a place of their own. Feelings of guilt, rivalry and burgeoning pride soon become a challenge for the whole family. Lirio Ferreira explores these siblings’ willingness to take risks in images of impressively virtuoso circus acts, combining these with elements of classical tragedy and magical images of the sea to create a brilliant cinematic experience.
We welcome you to this year’s Berlinale and for to the TEDDY Award, your favourite queer Film prize – Welcome to the TEDDY wonderland, in which we will feed you with rainbow coloured sweets from the Berlin International Film Festival.
We start with a sweet from a remote place: the stories of a circus on an island, an artist lost in himself and the blue of the sea. So, come in, come in!
Normally, the people go to sauna to do something good for their healthiness. Mona Iraqi has other reasons, she wants to denounce men there and keep them in jail. She would say to establish order.
Foto: Mona Iraqi on Facebook
So to speak, Mona Iraqi’s personal task is to restore the morality in Egypt. The journalist does everything to accomplish her aim. She scored the big coup in December last year – 26 men* were draged out an hammam and discharged with big police cars.
It should be only a nice concomitant for Iraqi that she boosted up the audience rating with her report. In her mind, she had revealed the largest den of homosexual group perversions in Kairo. However, homosexuality isn’t forbidden in Egypt. Although, there is a useful paragraph from 1961. This paragraph makes sexual excesses a punishable offense. The authorities say that the men have violated this paragraph. Key piece of evidence: All men were naked or wore only a towel at the hammam.
The arrestment of the 26 men is only the peak of an homophobic hunt. Mona Iraqi already caused a stir with her three-episode series ‘Gays and Aids in Egypt’. So it was a act of honor that she called the police by herself.
*The men came free at the beginning of the year. The competent judge declared that all defendants are innocent.
