Tag Archives: D. Smith

TEDDY TODAY: 21st of februar 2023

The 37th TEDDY Award ceremony is slowly approaching and it’s getting hectic for us! We are having great fun preparing all the nice events for you.

Today is our TEDDY Talents Talk. You can find out more here.

If you prefer to sit back and relax, you can do that at our premieres or reruns today.

PREMIERES:

20.000 especies de abejas

Directed by: Estibaliz Urresola
Spain, 2023, 125′
TEDDY nominated

Film still 20.000 especies de abejas | 20,000 Species of Bees © Gariza Films, Inicia Films

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

21.02. / 12:45 Berlinale Palast

Incroci

Directed by: Francesca de Fusco
USA, Italy, 2023, 13′
TEDDY nominated

Film still Incroci © Sofia Camarago Hoyos

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?

SCREENING TIMES:

21.02. / 12:30 Zoo Palast 1

Learn more about the film in our interview with Francesca de Fusco.

Kokomo City

Directed by: D. Smith
USA, 2023, 73′
TEDDY nominated

Film still Kokomo City © Couch Potatoe Pictures

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

21.02. / 19:00 Zoo Palast 2

Learn more about the film in our interview with D. Smith.

Langer Langer Kuss

Directed by: Lukas Röder
Germany, 2023, 40′

Film still Langer Langer Kuss | Long Long Kiss © HFFMünchen

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

21.02. / 12:00 Cubix 2

Love to Love You, Donna Summer

Directed by: Roger Ross Williams, Brooklyn Sudano
USA, 2023, 105′

Film still Love to Love You, Donna Summer © Courtesy of Estate of Donna Summer Sudano

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

21.02. / 15:00 Haus der Berliner Festspiele

Taif kurabu

Directed by: Shinji Smai
Japan, 1985, 115′

Film still Taifū kurabu | Typhoon Club © Directors Company

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

Manodrome
21.02. / 15:45 Verti Music Hall

Mutt
21.02. / 15:30 Filmtheater am Friedrichshain

Nuits blanches (Sleepless Nights)
21.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9

Passages
21.02. / 12:30 Cubix 9

A Rainha Diaba (The Devil Queen)
21.02. / 17:00 Werkstattkino@silent green

Silver Haze
21.02. / 16:00 Cubix 5

Sisi & Ich (Sisi & I)
21.02. / 18:00 Cubix 9

Sværddrage (The Shift)
21.02. / 10:00 Cineplex Titania

This Is the End
21.02. / 16:00 Cubix 7

To Write From Memory
21.02. / 09:45 Zoo Palast 2

Transfariana
21.02. / 21:15 Akademie der Künste

All films 2023

You can find the full overview of queer films presented at the 37. TEDDY Awards here. Presentations of films from former TEDDY editions are available in our film database.

FEATURE FILMS

All Feature Films at 37th TEDDY AWARD

DOCUMENTARY / ESSAY FILMS

All Documentary Films at 36th TEDDY AWARD

SHORT FILMS

All Short Films at 37th TEDDY AWARD

EXHIBITIONS

Film still Un gif larguísimo | A Very Long Gif © Eduardo Williams

SERIES

Film still Bad Behaviour © Sarah Enticknap

TEDDY TALKS & PANELS 2023

PROGRAM

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17th

22:30 TEDDY JURY RECEPTION: Moderated Introduction to our Jury
The traditional introduction of the TEDDY AWARD jury with information and talks about the work of the jury, their festivals and what a queer film award means to them.

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18th

15:15 – 16:30 CURATING THE FUTURE: Towards programming equity (EFM Industry Session)
What is the future of film programming? Join us for a discussion of just, ethical, and community-rooted film programming practices as well as a participatory worldbuilding experience to chart the future of the field with Karim Ahmad, Jemma Desai, Can Sungu, Lucy Mukerjee and Tambay Obenson.

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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20th

12:30 – 13:30 DIRECTORS EXCHANGE: Time after time, club culture and the concept of time in Queer Cinema

This year, a number of films invite us into the club as a social place and a space of timeless seduction and seemingly endless possibilities: two being Anthony Lapia’s film After; and Hannes Hirsch’s Berlin metamorphosis Drifter. These films could not be more different in style and narrative, but they both find a common denominator between beats, hedonism and losing oneself. We invite both filmmakers to speak about their inspiration and approach in crafting their films. 
Moderator: Ana David

14:30 TEDDY TALK: QueerWeb Part 1

The QueerWeb series is about exploring, analysing and connecting elements, initiatives and organisations that can strengthen the queer film network, from production to programming, networking to training and exhibition to archiving. In Part 1, we begin by navigating existing organisations that support people within the industry. From collectives and initiatives to training programs set up to strengthen connections from within. By coming together, we look to analyse existing power structures and discuss how each of us, through our work, can collectively go about demanding changes.
Moderator: Nastaran Tajeri-Foumani

16:30 DIRECTORS EXCHANGE: Biographies of beauty, rebellion and truth. Trans* narratives as tools of unapologetic self-representation


Moving through 24 hours of sweeping emotions in the existence of a singular trans* man to the unfiltered wisdom and self-empowerment of four black trans* sex workers, Directors Vuk Lungulov-Klotz and D. Smith talk us through their bold cinematic statements of artistic and aesthetic expression. Fuelled by their respective critique of a binary world, the importance of self-representation will be explored within the directors’ exchange. 
Moderator: Djamilia Grandits

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21st

14:00 – 15:30 TEDDY TALENTS TALKS


Five queer film professionals present a 10-minute talk around Queer Visions. Creating that vision from existing realities, from experiences on film sets, in pitching meetings, writers rooms, auditions or creating that program for your festival audience? How do these visions or utopias look, are they achievable or are we just kidding ourselves? Let us explore the possibilities of change in the TEDDY Talents Talks. 
Moderator: Djamilia Grandits

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22nd

9:30 – 18:30 EFM QUEER FOCUS DAY: Screenings
Queer Film Catch Up Screenings

10:30 MANIFESTATIONS: Queer Short Film Program
Market Screening Event for Programmers

14:30 TEDDY TALK: From Surviving to Thriving!
In an effort to strengthen the Queer Film Market we must first look at its many fragile entities. The Queer Film Festivals, made mostly on shoestring budgets, the Queer Films with little to no development funding and the distribution network, heavily dependent on the screening fees from the festivals that in turn struggle with little to no budgets. How has this survived up until now and is this sustainable in the face of a changing cinema landscape?  In taking an in depth look at existing structures, we aim to examine the balance between surviving and thriving.
Moderator: Skadi Loist

16:30 QUEER YOUR PROGRAM: Hybrid Those Speedy Film Pitches
Thirty Filmmakers whose films are ready for distribution will present their projects within two-minute pitches to programmers, distributors and sales agents. Join in to find potentially your next opening night film.
Moderator: Bartholomew Sammut

18:30 QUEER INDUSTRY RECEPTION
The annual gathering of industry professionals from the Queer Film Industry, from filmmakers to programmers, to distributors and sales agents.