The 37th TEDDY Award was a success. Thanks to everyone who was there and made this evening so beautiful. We are happy that this year again we could set a sign and celebrated queer life and queer creativity and solidarity. With the 37th TEDDY AWARD, thanks to you, we were able to make our contribution and share a rainbow of queer joy, visibility and community with you.
Today the 73rd Berlinale comes to an end. We had many great films and interviews this year. Not to forget the award ceremony of the GOLDEN BEARS and the TEDDY AWARDS. We´re extremly hapyy to have been able to send a clear message to our community and celebrating queer talent, creativity and solidarity!
To close out this year’s Berlinale you have another chance to check out a few of this year’s films today.
We look forward to next year and hope to see you again in 2024.
Talented conductor Lydia Tár has established herself in the male-dominated world of classical music. When she arrives in Berlin as the first woman appointed to conduct a major German orchestra, she is at the peak of her career. Between commitments and concerts on both sides of the Atlantic, she is preparing for a much anticipated recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. But a shadow suddenly falls over this charismatic figure; her performance on the podium suffers and her status begins to falter. Past decisions and the impact they had on a young musician resurface and Tár risks falling victim to the same obsessions again, complicating her relationship with her concertmaster and partner (played by Nina Hoss) and jeopardising her career and the reputation of the entire orchestra.T ÁR, which according to director Todd Field is a film “by” Cate Blanchett, without whom it would never have seen the light of day, is the portrait of a memorable female figure, ambitious and complex, that takes a critical look at the classical music business. A film capable of expressing an extraordinary musical passion, and also a tribute to Berlin and what makes it the city it is.
SCREENING TIMES:
23.02. / 22:00 Berlinale Palast
RERUNS:
20.000 especies de abejas (20,000 Species of Bees) 23.02. / 12:30 Zoo Palast 1 23.02. / 18:30 Verti Music Hall
After 23.02. / 21:30 Cineplex Titania
Arturo a los 30 (About Thirty) 23.02. / 10:30 Zoo Palast 5
Today is a full day with many events we have prepared for you. Feel free to swing by our events “EFM Queer Focus Day”, “Manifestations”, “TEDDY Talk: From Surviving to Thriving!”, “Queer Your Program” and “QUEER Industry Reception”. If you want to know more about it, you can do so here.
Also, as always, you can find our premieres and reruns listed in this blog post.
Doesn’t crush also mean “to smash”? Dealing with their own obsessive crushes, Ella Rocca researches what to do about it. During the quest for a representation of their feelings, texts, images and sounds are layered on top of each other on the computer screen and become the expression of intense contemplation. Internet discoveries and a moment of intimate directness merge to provide a sense of the inner workings of infatuation.
Five women are running an old hotel and trying to save it from inexorable decay. Guests arrive over the course of a weekend: a couple bears the wounds of a long-term misunderstanding; a domineering mother interferes in her daughter’s relationship; two girls try to save their own love story in the face of opposition from a possessive mother. Viver Mal is the reverse shot of Mal Viver, which is screening in the Competition: here, João Canijo reveals everything that was floating in the depth of field in this film’s mirror image. Reality becomes the intertwining and multiplication of different points of view; the intersection between what can be seen and what the eye misses. Like aplay of light reflections, Viver Mal is Mal Viver in another dimension. The image is distorted, but at the same time seeks a new definition by relaunching itself into infinity.
SCREENING TIMES:
22.02. / 11:45 CinemaxX 7
RERUNS:
20.000 especies de abejas (20,000 Species of Bees) 22.02. / 15:30 Berlinale Palast
An eight-year-old is suffering because people keep addressing the child in ways that cause discomfort. They insist on calling the child by the birth name Aitor. And the nickname, Cocó, even if less obviously wrong, does not feel right either. During a summer in the Basque country, the child confides these worries to relatives and friends. But how can a mother handle her child’s quest for identity when she is herself still dealing with her own ambivalent parental legacy? Basque director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren’s debut feature is a sunny drama. This wonderfully sensitive work is carried by heart-wrenching performances from newcomer Sofía Otero as the little girl in search of a name and Patricia López Arnaiz as her conflicted yet loving mother. But, just as a multitude of bees ensure nature’s diversity, supporting roles are no less essential for the film’s heroine, anda largely female environment shows her some of the diverse ways in which it is possible to be a woman. By adopting more than one point of view, Urresola is respecting the incredible complexity that is gender identity, and touching on one perhaps less obvious aspect of transitioning: your mentality.
Bergamo, northern Italy. Fede’s days are spent between school and a home run by nuns. In a corridor of the Pensionato, Fede sees Valentina, a new tenant, for the first time. In the middle of a choreography of open, semi-open and closed doors, unknown feelings arise. As sudden as the luminosity of a flashlight entering a room at night. As odd as mixing new flavours. Another world is born inside the one Fede knew, with different questions and possibilities. What does it mean to desire?
Morning routines and conversations in bed, gossip and real talk. In encounters and interviews, D. Smith portrays four Black trans sexworkers in New York and Georgia. The protagonists discuss their lives with relish but without any sugar-coating. The conversations that emerge are deep and passionate reflections on socio-political and social realities as well as perceptive analyses of belonging and identity within the Black community and beyond. Dramatisations and reconstructions, performative interventions and associative collages of biographical set pieces are brought together organically in haunting black-and-white images accompanied by a carefully deployed soundtrack. Dreams and memories, battles fought and crises overcome are openly addressed without skirting topics such as precarityand violence. The protagonists also tell us about their lovers, friends and families, and how these relationships are marked by taboos and fetishisation, but also by their own desires. This vibrant portrait gives them space for their uninhibited and defiant narratives and undermines white, cis-heteronormative assumptions and stigmatisations.
Aaron is determined not to forget his ex-boyfriend Paul. He believes that the only way to preserve the memory of their caresses and kisses is to stop brushing his teeth. To him, all their emotions, all their touching and intimacies are stored in his teeth. His younger sisterand flatmate Lina gently tries to persuade her brother to practice oral hygiene, but she is no longer able to get through to him. When Aaron and Lina’s authoritarian father comes to visit, the situation escalates and Aaron’s behaviour becomes dangerously self-destructive. Lukas Röder, a student of the HFF in Munich, addresses the topic of mental health in his touching chamber piece. Via the actors’ intensely emotional performances and a second layer in which everyone involved reflects on their roles, behavioural patterns and ways of finding help are explored.
Love to Love You, Donna Summer tells the extraordinary story of disco queen Donna Summer through a rich archive of unpublished film excerpts, home video, photographs, artwork, writings, personal audio and other recordings that span the life of one of the most iconic performers ever to shake a room to its timbers. From her early career with Giorgio Moroder in Germany, to later years more focused on spirituality and family life as a shelter from troubles associated with both notoriety and intimate wounds, her story is all the more special for being told in the first person – both singular and plural. Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams and Summer’s daughter Brooklyn Sudano’s film has benefitted from Sudano’s privileged perspective, and her access to family members has helped gather a treasure of memories and material. But the intelligence and effect of the duo’s filmmaking approach itself is truly striking. Thanks to the skilful assimilation of audio testimonies into this wealth of images, we are able to discover – or rediscover – how complete an artist Donna Summer was. A key creator of her innovative hit songs, an articulate and funny entertainer and even a talented painter, this emancipated woman invented a lot – herself included.
This school-age tragedy is set in a secondary school in Tokyo over five days during which a typhoon grows, rages, and abates. After class clown Akira is caught watching his fellow students partying at the school’s indoor pool, he is deemed a peeping tom and held underwater so long he almost drowns. Meanwhile, the teacher who has been summoned has his own problems: the mother and uncle of a fellow teacher with whom he is having an affair are trying to force him to marry her, so he doesn’t have much attention to spare for the woes of his pupils. The children talk about life, death, and reincarnation; about a lesbian couple among them, and about the typhoon. As the storm draws closer, a sense of aggression swells among the schoolchildren … The storm of emotions in Typhoon Club is unleashed with the insistence of a force of nature. In an escalating rondel of episodes, including a brawl and an attempted rape, the film depicts a“spring awakening” with feelings erupting like hot lava flows. It captures the self-sufficient world of youth poised between exuberance and depression, while the camera keeps a respectful distance.
SCREENING TIMES:
21.02. /21.02. / 19:00 Cubix 3
RERUNS:
After 21.02. / 21:30 Cubix 2
Almamula 21.02. / 15:30 Cineplex Titania
El castillo (The Castle) 21.02. / 10:00 Cubix 9
Femme 21.02. / 21:30 Cineplex Titania
Hummingbirds 21.02. / 20:00 Urania
It’s a Date 21.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9
Knochen und Namen (Bones and Names) 21.02. / 10:00 Cubix 6
Langer Langer Kuss (Long Long Kiss) 21.02. / 19:00 International
Mangosteen 21.02. / 14:00 Werkstattkino@silent green
