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!
Name: Diego Trerotola
Country: Argentina
Festival: LGBTIQ Film Festival Asterisco
How do you like Berlin? What is special about the city for you?
Cinema is a my first map of the world, that’s why Berlin is, to me, a bunch of images from R. W. Fassbinder and Rosa von Praunheim and, above all, it’s Emil Jannings and his (my) uniform fetish through the eyes of F. W. Murnau in Der letzte Mann (1924). Big cities are great illusions, and Berlin gave that to me the first time I went there in 2010.
How would you describe the Berlinale in one sentence?
Huge, challenging, eccentric, but mostly fierce, bright and tender like a Golden Bear.
What was your first encounter with the TEDDY AWARD?
When I became a film critic in Buenos Aires, in the early 90s, I discovered the rise of the New Queer Cinema and the TEDDY at the same time. Todd Haynes’ Poison and Rose Troche’s Go Fish were my two ways of confirming the power of the TEDDY AWARD at that time.
In your eyes, what does the TEDDY AWARD symbolize? What does it stand for? What makes it unique?
The TEDDY is a quest for a different perspective in contemporary cinema as well as the meeting point for people related to world cinema and sexual and gender diversity. As a film festival programmer, it’s also a big influence, because the selection is always top-notch. On a personal level, the award’s logo, the bear drawing by Ralph König, is very hot, because of my erotic bear sensibility!
Tell us about a movie you’ve recently seen.
I discovered a new Susan Sontag in a documentary about her: a portrait of a great writer and filmmaker as well as a community of desire, literature and cinema during the late fifties and the sixties. Sontag was challenging the boundaries of her time with great, innovative views on culture, especially queer culture.
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.
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.
Tomorrow the Berlinale start and we are already excited!
Ten days of film, glamour and high society will begin and the Teddy is right in it – together with You! To assure that you will always be up to date, we will post daily news from the festival here on our Teddy Today pages. All information, trailers, pictures and interviews will be found here.
We are looking forward to it!
Missed the last TEDDY-news? No time to check our daily updates on our blog and social media? Don’t worry! Here’s everything you shouldn’t have missed.
Berlinale is two days away! This is not a drill! Yesterday, Panorama curator Wieland Speck gave an introduction to the queer films at Berlinale 2015. At Kino International, the queer film fans of Berlin came together.
http://instagram.com/p/ynOdd-w6TN/?modal=true
For everyone who couldn’t make it we can say this: the queer films at Berlinale this year will be great. For an overview, you can check them out on our website as well as on our blog. The TEDDY Programme Guide is also available for download. And just to give you an idea, here’s the trailer for one of the craziest queer films this year, the Swedish musical Dyke Hard:
Don’t forget that the TEDDY AWARD Opening Party at SchwuZ Club is this Friday! You can check out all the DJs here. We can assure you that it will be a night to remember. Lego & Marsmaedchen will play rock, Chance & Dark, Lucky Pierre and Ena Lind will provide you with electronic music and tons of other great DJs and artists will be there to entertain you!
The TEDDY wouldn’t be the TEDDY if, besides the music and the party, we wouldn’t also support important LGBTI causes. This year, we’ll have information booths concerning trans* issues and especially Chelsea Manning. The Whistle Blower has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. Chelsea has come out as a trans*woman over a year ago and still has to fight for the start of the hormonal treatment that was promised her by the US government. Chelsea Manning needs our support!
For those who want to read more about the TEDDY, we have been introducing the international TEDDY AWARD Jury on our blog all week. We also remembered the LGBTI activist David Kato on his 4th memorial anniversary and reported on Bombastic, the first LGBTI magazine in Uganda.
http://instagram.com/p/yl7-hwMOtl/?modal=true
As seen above, people were actually camping in front of the Berlinale ticket counters this week, so it’s safe to assume that you guys are just as excited as we are for Berlinale to finally start. This is the last Week in Review. Starting Thursday the TEDDY Todays on this blog will inform you daily about everything that’s happening at Berlinale. We are looking forward to a great festival with you!
