It’s time to introduce our great acts for the award ceremony on 23 February. The Rope Duo Two on the Rope will take us up high and singer LUNA and actress Mina-Giselle Rüffer will take us into the depths of emotion. All performances reflect human existence uniquely, and we are delighted to welcome them as part of the 38th TEDDY AWARD.
LUNA
LUNA’s lyrics make you feel like you’re secretly reading along in someone’s diary – except that it’s allowed. The artist takes us with her as she navigates her way through her 20s and the big and small questions of life. Her music is one thing above all: damn personal.
She has long since proven that she is more than just a TikTok hype: She has a club tour behind her, has been on the road as a support act for LEA, has received various awards and prizes (for example the 1LIVE crown as “Best Newcomer Act”, “Durchstarter*in des Jahres” at the New Music Award or the Musikautor*innenpreis).
Outside and within her music, LUNA has been committed to issues that are close to her heart since day one: mental health or the visibility of people belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community, which she does with sensitivity and extreme openness when it comes to revealing her own feelings to a wide audience.
The numbers and successes, but above all the strong bond with her fanbase, speak for themselves: LUNA is here to stay. She continues to let us peek into her emotional world and gives visibility to people who have felt unseen all their lives.
Mina-Giselle Rüffer
Mina-Giselle Rüffer made her debut at the age of ten in Neele Vollmar’s children’s film “Rico, Oscar and the Deep Shadows”, followed by numerous roles in series and films. For her outstanding portrayal of Nora in the fifth season of “Druck” she was honoured with the Grimme Award
Currently she is playing the lead role in the young adult horror series “Unnoticed – Was wir fürchten”, which deals with the topic of sexual identity and the highly topical issue of bullying in schools and thus the victimisation of children and young people. Mina-Giselle lives in Berlin.
Two on the Rope
Brace yourselves as they take you on an unforgettable journey of passion, love, and heartbreak, high up in the air! Their awe-inspiring performance will tug at your heartstrings, as they portray the invisible bond between two people, weaving their hearts together in a mesmerizing display of trust and emotions. But what happens when this bond is suddenly torn apart? Can love endure without it, or is it lost forever in a sea of loneliness? With breathtaking heights and gravity-defying acts, “Two on the Rope” will leave you spellbound, as they merge the moments of parting and new beginnings into a beautiful dance of emotions. It’s a moment of truth that will make your soul search for answers, and your heart yearn for the lost song.
Dear queer independent film lovers, today there is is another packed program waiting for you. Additionally there are various film premieres of up-and-coming international hits. Otherwise we as always have a list of reruns of films that already premiered below.
We wish you a lively and queer cinema experience today, tomorrow and for the rest of the Berlinale!
INTERVIEWS:
Fin (Huling Palabas)
In the summer of 2001, 16-year-old Andoy searches for his long-lost father in the most unlikely of places: on VHS tapes. When two movie-like characters appear in his small hometown, his reality begins to falter.
Fourteen-year-old Elias increasingly feels like an outsider in his village. When he meets Alexander, his new neighbour of the same age, Elias is confronted with his burgeoning sexuality.
Two tales of migration, memories and ghosts. After a disaster floods her land, Joana moves to São Paulo and tries to restart her life. Following the death of her father, Flavia moves to his farm in the country with her wife Mara.
Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show – a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the TV, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.
Buenos Aires, 2019. Lucrecia, who works as a museum security guard, foresees a sharp rise in the dollar’s value with her pendulum and falls in love with the employee of a currency exchange office.
Created from archival materials from communist Poland, the film tells the story of a multispecies matriarchal family through the eyes of a child grappling with the reproduction of ideological and representational systems.
West Berlin, 1979. Jürgen Baldiga, son of a miner from Essen, has just arrived in the city and decides to become an artist. Working as a rent boy and cook, he writes poems and a diary. After learning that he has HIV in 1984, he discovers photography. He intends his images to stop time and capture reality. They reveal his friends and lovers, wild sex, life on the street and the camp queens from the SchwuZ gay club who become his adopted family. Oscillating between despair and desire, rebellion and the will to survive, Baldiga becomes a chronicler of the queer West Berlin subculture in the face of his own imminent demise. When he died at the age of 34 in 1993, he left behind thousands of photographs and forty diaries – a unique artistic legacy. Using poetic diary excerpts, stark images and memories from companions, Baldiga – Entsichertes Herz depicts not only a ground breaking photographer but also an AIDS activist and committed fighter against the stigmatisation of gay people’s lives.
Filmed during the “Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour” in 2022, this documentary seamlessly weaves together exclusive archival gems with dynamic tour footage to capture the transformative journey of Canadian Merrill Nisker into the internationally acclaimed cultural powerhouse that is Peaches. From the inception of the stage show to the rigorous rehearsals and riveting performances, the film provides an intimate look at the inner workings of the tour. As a feminist musician, producer, director and performance artist, Peaches has spent over two decades challenging gender expectations, solidifying her status alongside pop and music industry icons. Her fearless originality has called social norms into question, dismantled stereotypes and confronted patriarchal power structures. Through biting wit, she advocates for LGBTQIA+ rights and tackles issues of sexual and gender and identity, leaving an indelible mark on popular culture.
While their parents are away, eight-year-old Rafaela stays at home in the care of her 15-year-old sister, Laura. When Laura decides to go visit a boy she likes, Rafaela has to tag along. But then Laura and the boy lock themselves in his room. Rafaela waits, gets bored and finally begins to explore the house. She has a unique encounter with Uli, a queer young woman, and her pet. A film about the feeling of strangeness and the possibility of finding freedom in an unfamiliar place.
Tú me abrasas is an adaptation of “Sea Foam”, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s “Dialoghi con Leucò” published in 1947. The ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis meet beside the sea and have a conversation about love and death. Sappho is said to have thrown herself into the ocean from lovesickness. Britomartis apparently tumbled off a cliff and into the water while fleeing from a man. Together, the two discuss the stories and images that have emerged around them to try and understand, at least for a moment, the bittersweet nature of desire. The film adapts not only the text but also footnotes and gaps in the story. For example, the fact that, in 1950, a desperate Pavese committed suicide in a hotel room with this book by his side. Or that Sappho’s poems have survived only in fragments. Or that sea foam is historically and scientifically associated with fertility and bacteria, that is, with life itself. “Everything dies in the sea and comes back to life”, says Britomartis. Tú me abrasas introduces new readings and translations that go beyond the myths by Pavese and Sappho.
Which movie is premiering today? Which cinema is showing my favorite film? You can find this information and much more here.
INTERVIEWS:
Uli
Rafaela accompanies her older sister on a visit to a boy. As the two older ones retreat, Rafa begins to explore the house. She meets queer girl Uli and her pet, and has the opportunity to find freedom in an unfamiliar place.
Buenos Aires, 2019. Lucrecia, who works as a museum security guard, foresees a sharp rise in the dollar’s value with her pendulum. When she suddenly loses her job, she receives an unexpected severance payment and falls in love with the employee of a currency exchange office.
In every movie he watches, 16-year-old Andoy creates narratives that could help him find answers to the questions that have always bothered him: Who is he and who is his father? The truth remains elusive; none of his imaginings come true. But then two characters appear in Andoy’s hometown who themselves seem to have come out of a movie: Ariel, a hairdresser who attracts young men with his inexplicable charm, and Isidro, a mysterious, long-haired man who owns a VCD player. Andoy finds himself entranced by them both. But the deeper he becomes entangled in their twisted lives, the more his reality begins to falter. Andoy must decide whether to end his years of searching for his father with a bang or with a whimper.
A hot summer evening. Home alone by the pool, 16-year-old Clément is bored to death. Determined to lose his virginity, he swipes through guys’ profiles on Grindr, lies about his age, and arranges to hook up with 24-year-old Naël. As the time draws near, Clément rushes things. But it is only through the discovery of a body that is completely different from Naël’s that Clément truly grows up.
Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show – a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the TV, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.
Prem, the charismatic host of a popular radio show offering advice on matters of the heart, is himself plagued by heartache. He seeks solace in the rugged mountains. As he goes through his own emotional upheaval, desperate calls from listeners asking him for advice echo through the wilderness. Both Prem and his audience try to navigate their way through the treacherous terrain of love. A gripping tale of emotional turmoil and self-discovery.
Upper Austria in 1750. A fish pond reflects the overcast sky. A deep, dark forest swallows the sunlight. On a hilltop, the corpse of a hanged woman is displayed. As an example. A warning. An omen? The deeply religious and highly sensitive Agnes regards the dead woman with pity. But also with longing: she feels like a stranger in the world of her husband Wolf, whom she has just married. It is an emotionally cold world consisting of work, chores and expectations. Agnes increasingly withdraws into herself. Her internal prison becomes ever more oppressive, her melancholy more overwhelming. Soon, her only way out seems to be a shocking act of violence.
Yuck! Couples kissing on the mouth are gross. And the worst thing is, you can’t miss them: when people are about to kiss, their lips go all pink and shiny. Little Léo laughs at them, just like all the other kids at the campsite. But he has a secret he won’t tell his friends: his own mouth has actually begun glistening. And, in reality, Léo desperately wants to give kissing a try, too.
Six films are on our list of premieres today. Have you already picked your favourites?
INTERVIEWS:
I´m Not Everything I Want To Be
After the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková strives to break free from the constraints of the repressive Czechoslovakian regime and embarks on a long journey towards freedom.
Santiago in the shimmering summer heat. High-res images undergo a digital zoom which transforms spaces into surfaces and houses into textures. In between, there are the small gestures of everyday urban life. And two women in search of a place for their love.
The world of a Jewish cantor in the midst of a crisis of faith is turned completely upside down when his primary school music teacher comes back into his life as his new, later-life Bat Mitzvah student.
Two tales of migration between the city and the countryside. After devastating floods in her hometown, rural worker Joana moves to São Paulo to find her sister Tania who lives with her grandson Jaime. Joana struggles to thrive in this “working city”. Entering the world of precarious employment, she applies for a job at a cleaning company. There, Joana gradually bonds with her colleagues whose collective struggle for better working conditions brings new meaning to her life. Meanwhile, her deepening relationship with young Jaime reawakens memories of her missing son. In the second part of the film, following the death of her estranged father, Flavia moves to his farm with her wife Mara. The two women struggle to make a fresh start in the wilderness. Living in the abandoned house, Flavia discovers unknown aspects of her father’s life. The couple suffers a shock when facing the harsh realities of rural daily life. Flavia begins to suspect that there is something in the woods surrounding the house. Nature forces the couple to confront old memories and ghosts.
Spain during the Noche de San Juan festival. Two sisters, 14-year-old Jessica and 8-year-old Alma, are once again on their way to pick up food stamps from the Caritas charity. The violence they have both experienced over the years at the hands of their father has turned Jessica into an angry, self-destructive teenager with a thick protective skin. She even subjects her little sister to her harsh, hostile behaviour. But during the course of their journey together, Jessica realises that she does not want to turn out like her father. She must learn to treat Alma with love instead of violence.
He pays him a visit in Frankfurt during his work trip to Europe. He talks about their time in Beijing, back in 2015. He listens, sometimes answers, unblurring those seemingly important details which do not matter any longer. Worn-out joy and fresh weariness. This might be the last time they meet.
Fanny, a 17-year-old schoolgirl from France, goes on a language exchange trip to Germany. In Leipzig, she meets her pen pal Lena who is the same age as her and who is eager to become involved in political activism. In order to impress Lena, the rather shy and withdrawn Fanny invents a different life for herself – but she quickly becomes trapped in her deceit.
Santiago in the shimmering heat of summer. High-resolution images undergo a digital zoom process which transforms spaces into surfaces and houses into textures. In between, there are the small gestures of everyday urban life. And two women who are searching for a place for their love.
Today, four queer films are celebrating their premiere at the 74th Berlinale. We also have several interviews for you that provide an interesting insight into the making of the films.
INTERVIEWS:
Tú me abrasas
Tú me abrasas is an adaptation of “Sea Foam”, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s “Dialoghi con Leucò” in which the Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis talk of desire and death.
Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long term inmates or those newly admitted: women re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison, in trance and balance, voguing and singing. A hybrid musical and charming piece of collective empowerment.
After losing her husband, 65-year-old midwife Betânia is persuaded by her daughters to leave her remote village. She moves near the sand dunes of Lençóis Maranhenses in northern Brazil and ventures a new beginning.
After the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková strives to break free from the constraints of the repressive Czechoslovakian regime and embarks on a long journey towards freedom.
Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder heading through town on the way to Las Vegas, falls in love with the reclusive gym manager Lou. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.
Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long term inmates or those newly admitted: women re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison, in trance and balance, voguing and singing. A hybrid musical and charming piece of collective empowerment.
