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TEDDY TODAY: 17th of February 2024

February 17, 2024 mia2903

The third day of the Berlinale is here and has several interesting TEDDY films in store.

INTERVIEWS:

The Visitor

A refugee washes up in a small suitcase on the banks of the River Thames in London. Arriving at the house of an upper-class family, he seduces each and every family member, depicted in explicit sex scenes. A reimagining of Pasolini’s Teorema.

Premiere: 17.02/ 22:00 Kino International

🎥18.02/ 15:30 Cubix 9
🎥21.02/ 22:00 Kino Internationa l
🎥22.02/ 21:30 Cubix 5

You can find more information about the director and the film right HERE!

All Shall Be Well

When her partner Pat unexpectedly dies, Angie is left to worry about the flat in which the couple lived together for over 30 years. Supported by her chosen family, Angie begins a later-life journey into emancipation.

🎥 17.02 / 21:30 Cubix 8
🎥 18.02 / 12:30 Cubix 9
🎥 21.02 / 10:00 Cubix 5
🎥 23.02 / 12:00 Haus der Berliner Festspiele
🎥 25.02 / 15:30 Cineplex Titania

Looking for more information about the film? Click here

Cura Sana

Spain during the Noche de San Juan festival. Sisters Jessica and Alma are once again on their way to pick up food stamps from the Caritas charity. Although they have experienced violence at home, they both try to break the cycle and treat each other with love.

🎥19.02./ 13:30 Kino International
🎥20.02/ 18:45 Cubix 8
🎥23.02/ 12:30 Filmtheater am Friedrichshain
🎥25.02/ 18:30 Cineplex Titania

Click here to get more information about the film!

PREMIERES:

Sex

Directed by: Dag Johan Haugerud
Norway, 2024, 125′

Two chimney sweeps living in monogamous, heterosexual marriages both end up in situations that challenge their views on sexuality and gender roles

SCREENINGS:

17.02/ 16:30 Zoo Palast 1

The Visitor

Directed by: Bruce LaBruce
UK, 2024, 101′

SCREENINGS:

17.02/ 22:00 Kino International

Young Hearts

Directed by: Anthony Schatteman
Belgium, Netherlands, 2024, 97′

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.

SCREENINGS:

17.02/ 16:00 HKW1 – Miriam Makeba Auditorium

RERUNS:

All Shall Be Well
17.02/ 21:30 Cubix 8

Crossing
17.02/ 12:30 Cubix

Cuckoo
17.02 / 09:30 Haus der Berliner Festspiele
17.02 / 15:15 Verti Music Hall
17.02 / 21:30 Cubix 9

detours while speaking of monsters
17.02/ 21:00 Kino Betonhalle @silent green

Grandmamaauntsistercat
17.02/ 21:00 Kino Betonhalle @silent green

I Don´t Want To Be Just A Memory
17.02/ 21:00 Kino Betonhalle @silent green

Winners (Sieger sein)
17.02/ 10:00 Zoo Palast 2

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TEDDY TODAY: 16th of February 2024

February 16, 2024 ivyle

Welcome back to the second day of the 74th Berlinale and its queer program. Today there are a several premiers of stunning queer films as well as the TEDDY Jury Reception. Find more information about the event by clicking here. Six films are premiering today and we have two great interviews for you.

INTERVIEWS:

Teaches for Peaches

“Have you heard the Teaches of Peaches? Don´t miss this tour the force portrait of an uncompromising and unapologetic queer icon. Free yourself and fuck the pain away!”

Seamlessly weaving together exclusive archival gems with dynamic tour footage, this documentary captures the transformative journey of Canadian Merrill Nisker into the internationally acclaimed cultural powerhouse that is Peaches.

Premiere: 21.02 / 21:30 Zoo Palast 1

🎥 22.02 / 18:30 Cubix 9
🎥 23.02 / 12:15 Verti Music Hall

Click here to learn more about the film!

I Don´t Want To Be Just A Memory

“In this deeply moving film about loss and collective grief, Berlin’s queer community raises awareness about the ever growing issue of substance-related deaths in the scene. An emotive and urgent piece of filmmaking.“

Berlin queer community members mourn the substance abuse-related loss of their friends by sharing memories and rituals. Resembling glow-in-the-dark fungi, they radiate light together as a network of support and care.

Premiere: 16.02/ 16:00 Kino Arsenal 1

🎥 17.02/ 21:00 Kino Betonhalle@Silent Green
🎥 22.02/ 19:30 Kino Arsenal 2
🎥 22.02/ 19:30 Cubix 7
🎥25.02/ 19:00 Kino International

Want to learn more about this film? Click here!

PREMIERES:

All Shall Be Well

Directed by: Ray Yeung
Hong Kong, China, 2024, 93′

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 19:30 Kino International

Cuckoo

Directed by: Tilman Singer
2024, Germany, USA, 102′

Gretchen travels to the German Alps with her father and stepmother. In the resort town where they are staying, she comes across some
dark secrets. She hears strange noises and is plagued by frightening visions of a woman chasing her. Gretchen is drawn into a
conspiracy involving bizarre experiments by the resort’s owner that echoes back generations…

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 21:00 Verti Music Hall

detours while speaking of monsters

Directed by: Deniz Şimşek
Germany, Turkey, 2024, 18′

Here, where even monsters are political, the topography has its own memory. It has the mythological blues. Meanwhile, old gods are upset with us, and I am upset with my father.

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 16:00 Kino Arsenal 1

Grandmamauntsistercat

Directed by: Zuza Banasińska
Netherlands, Poland, 2024, 23′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 16:00 Kino Arsenal 1

I Don’t Want To Be Just A Memory

Directed by: Sarnt Utamachote
Germany, 2024, 20′

Fellow members of the Berlin queer community mourn together the loss of their dead friends due to substance abuse and the mental health crisis as well as the loss of urban safe spaces in general. By sharing personal materials, stories, and honest criticism about the club scene, working on this film becomes a means of healing for this group of friends. Resembling glow-in-the-dark fungi, they radiate light together as a network of support and care, they transform dead bodies and memories into a collective structure that sustains future living..

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 16:00 Kino Arsenal 1

Winners (Sieger Sein)

Directed by: Soleen Yusuf
Germany, 2024, 119′

*Film still Sieger Sein (Winners) © Stephan Burchardt / DCM*

Eleven-year-old Mona and the rest of her seven-member Kurdish family have fled Syria and ended up in Berlin. Or, more precisely, the
neighbourhood of Wedding where Mona is sent to a notorious primary school attended by 90 percent “foreigners”. Chaos reigns in the
school. Most of the teachers are having a nervous breakdown and frustration levels amongst the pupils are growing by the day. Mona
feels it, too. She can barely speak German, but she can speak football. In her hometown, she often played street football with her mates.
She misses her home, her friends and especially her aunt Helin. She was Mona’s hero who always supported her passion for football.
Everything is different in Germany. Then a dedicated teacher called Mr Che recognises Mona’s special talent and selects her for the
girls’ team. But this well-intentioned gesture fails to make things any easier. Mona is quickly identified as an outsider and playing in a
team with the other girls turns out to be more difficult than expected. Each of them is fighting their own battles but one thing soon
becomes clear: they will only win if they all play together.

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 15:30 HKW 1 – Miriam Makeba Auditorium

RERUNS:

Crossing
16.02. / 12:00 Verti Music Hall

Blog

The Hosts of the 38. TEDDY AWARD

February 16, 2024 mia2903

We’ve got amazing hosts who will guide us through an unforgettable award ceremony this year. The talented duo, Jack Woodhead and Mark Wartenberg, will provide us with some great music to keep us entertained. And we have the charming Brix Schaumburg and the delightful Zsombor Bobák as our hosts for the night. Get ready for an amazing time!

Jack Woodhead

Jack Woodhead – Performer and composer. Host of the Teddy Award Ceremony 2017 and 2018. Jack has written shows for and performed at Wintergarten Varieté Berlin, Bar jeder Vernunft, Tipi am Kanzerlamt, GOP Varieté, and toured internationally including sell out runs in Melbourne, and Bangkok. 

Mark Wartenberg

Mark Wartenberg – Actor and lyricist. German/French/Indonesian stage and film performer. Currently working on a musical. Recently filmed all of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Premiering a new show in London in April. 

Brix Schaumburg

Brix Schaumburg is a German actor. He just published his first children’s book with Carlsen and a new TV series will be airing soon.  He also is a singer and speaker, has won several awards and is actively striving towards more visibility and acceptance. 

Zsombor Bobák

Zsombor Bobák  joined the TEDDY team in 2018 and has since then seen almost all queer films at the Berlinale. With his insightful and competent interviews and conversations with the directors, he gives us a deep insight into the world of queer cinema and the makers every year on TEDDYAWARD TV. He holds an M.A. in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image from the University of Amsterdam and is a PhD student at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His field of research is queer archiving methods that bring the LGBTQ+ history of Central and Eastern Europe to life. He is passionate about queer moving images and recently 
started to explore the productive engagement of academic research and found footage filmmaking. 

You want to be part of an unforgettable night and experience the ceremony live, click here to get your tickets now!

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TEDDY TODAY: 15th of February 2024

February 15, 2024 ivyle

The wait is over. The 74th Berlinale is finally starting.
If you want to keep up to date with the premieres of LGBTQIA+ films, then you’ve come to the right place! Every day we will inform you about the latest films and screening times. In addition to the premieres, you will also find interesting interviews with the film makers over the next ten days.

Then all that’s left to do is buy your cinema ticket, order some popcorn and enjoy the screening!

For even more information and interviews about this year’s queer films, follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

The first interviews with the film makers are here:

Crossing

Lia, a retired teacher, has promised to find her long-lost niece, Tekla. Her search takes her to Istanbul where she meets Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights, and Tekla starts to feel closer than ever.

Premiere: 21:00 / Zoo Palast 1

🎥 15.02 / 21:30 Zoo Palast 2
🎥 16.02 / 12:00 Verti Music Hall
🎥 17.02 / 12:30 Cubix 9
🎥 18.02 / 10:00 Cubix 5
🎥 23.02 / 16:30 Kino International

More about the director and his film

Goodbye First Love

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.

🎥 19.02 / 21:30 Cubix 9
🎥 20.02 / 13:30 Cineplex Titania
🎥 21.02. / 15:00 Cinema Betonhalle@Silent Green

More about the director and his film!

Baldiga – Unlocked Heart

Using diary excerpts, photographs and memories from companions, the film paints the portrait of the artist Jürgen Baldiga who sensitively and authentically captured the West Berlin queer scene of the 1980s and early 1990s with his camera.

🎥 21.02 / 18:45 Haus der Berliner Festspiele
🎥 22.02 / 21:30 Cubix 8
🎥 23.02 / 10:30 Cubix 5

More about the director and his film

PREMIERES:

Crossing

Directed by: Levan Akin
Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, France, Georgia, 2024, 105′

Lia, a retired teacher, has made a promise to find out what happened to her long-lost niece, Tekla. When Lia learns from a neighbour,
Achi, that Tekla might have left their Georgian homeland and be living in Turkey, Lia and Achi set off together to find her. Arriving in
Istanbul, they discover a beautiful city full of connections and possibilities. But searching for someone who never intended to be found is harder than they expected – until they meet Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights. As Lia and Achi weave their way through the city’s
backstreets, Tekla starts to feel closer than ever.
Levan Akin’s fourth feature film is filled with an impressive emotional immediacy. Two initially hesitant strangers overcome not only
ideological but also internal boundaries on their mission and join forces. The topography of the city plays just as important a role in this
ode to humanity as the array of characters that live within it.

SCREENING TIMES:

15.02. / 21:00 Zoo Palast 1

RERUNS:

Crossing
15.02/ 21:30 Zoo Palast 2

Blog

Meet the DJs

February 14, 2024 mia2903

This year’s TEDDY AWARD after-party promises to be anything but boring. Featuring DJ FRNZTE, DJ Marsmaedchen, and DJ Monique, the party will be filled with great music and the hottest beats. But before you hit the dance floor on February 23rd, let us introduce you to the talented DJs who will be providing the music.

FRNZTE

FRZNTE is an East Berlin-born DJ, Pole Performer and Cultural Producer.

In her pole performances, she combines performative, choreographic, and sculptural elements, often referring to the architectural context. Her body wrapping and moving around the pole becomes a kinetic sculpture and gesture of empowerment. Most recently FRZNTE collaborated with Transmoderna, a digital art and electronic music collective co-founded by world renowned DJ Dixon. She has also performed with Peaches at Deutsche Oper, Berlin, on a bridge crossing the Spree as part of the performative boat ride Another Map to Nevada organized by The Performance Agency, as well as on a privatized parking lot within Guerrilla Architects & Alicia Augustín’s theater play 1km² Berlin – Akt II: A place to be. Die Tragödie der offenen Stadt. The digital performance project Next Waves Theatre hosted by Volksbühne brought FRZNTE on screen into the public’s living room; and the architecture magazine ARCH+ put her on the front page for their Berlin Praxis issue published in 2021. She is occasionally on tour with the Icelandic artist and musician Apex Anima. They create a highly energetic audio-visual live show in which they fuse ethereal with physical, platonic with erotic and static with acrobatic moments. As a DJ her mix of Hip Hop, Disco, Techno, Booty Beats and the most beautiful All Time Favourites transform art shows, film events and nightclubs into an extravaganza of wild parties. Her music is both trash and glam. Sometimes, she brings her pole to the party and stirs up a mirage of smoke with her slowly spinning high heels for her hypnotic Pole DJ Set.

And we continue with Marsmaedchen

DJ Marsmaedchen

This exceptional acoustic phenomenon accelerates the intergalactic understanding of species with its universal language: all kinds of music. The dance floor becomes a terrestrial melting pot: Marsmaedchen is polyamorous in terms of sound, because almost every musical genre has beautiful examples. Extraterrestrial electro, weightless vocal house, intergalactic alternative/indie and rock that makes the big bang fizzle out? Marsmaedchen had them all, even if not in one evening. Her soundscape for a collective dance orgy: driving bass and safer sounds. There’s also the odd bit of well-placed trash. Marsmaedchen also fights for space peace. Their weapons: Confetti cannons and Balkan beats from a better world. Even the so-called mainstream is not only tolerated, but celebrated: with pop, charts and party classics, Marsmaedchen catapults the mood into higher spheres. And when homesickness for her Milky Way flares up, she lets Urban & R `n B pulsate through the speakers. As a self-confessed extraterrestrial, Marsmaedchen is at home everywhere, second home: Berlin. In addition to the capital’s clubs, she is often on the road in Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden and Munich. SO36, Gretchen Club, Übel und Gefährlich, Knust, Hühnerposten, Artheater, Kraftwerk Mitte and, of course, especially at SchwuZ. Night flight permission granted.
Beat us up, Marsmaedchen!

Let´s not forget DJ Monique

DJ Monique

As a DJ, I know that it’s a great challenge to get a crowd of people from different backgrounds, ages, and musical tastes on the dance floor. My favourite thing to do is play timeless classics that have dominated the charts for years and are loved by every generation. They have the power to turn a party from good to amazing and get a crowd of strangers in a party mood together. I enjoy filling the dance floor and creating an unforgettable party for everyone. I’m always looking for that one perfect song that will get everyone on the dance floor and get them moving. As a DJ, it’s my passion to wow the crowd with the best songs of all time. That’s why I prefer to play all-time favourites. I just love to see people getting down on the dance floor and celebrating life. Let’s get wild!

We are thrilled to have DJs performing at our TEDDY afterparty, which will take place at the Volksbühne this year. If you want to be a part of the TEDDY AWARD event, you can purchase tickets by visiting the Volksbühne website.