Today’s the big day: the TEDDY AWARDS are being given out at the Volksbühne – and you can join us via live stream!
We’re so excited for tonight’s show, and even though there can’t yet be an audience, we have a wonderful program prepared for you. In spite of all the restrictions, we’re more than happy to be able to set a sign: no virus will keep us from celebrating queer life and queer creativity and solidarity.
There will be live performances by GEORGETTE DEE as well as by RASHA NAHAS. For the first time, BRIX SCHAUMBURG is going to host the TEDDY AWARDS and MICHAEL STÜTZ (Head of Panorama) will join us for a little chat with ZSOMBOR BOBÁK. Last but not least, our fantastic TEDDY JURY will be there to award four brilliant filmmakers for their work.
So open a little bottle of bubbly and join us for the party! 🥳
RERUNS:
Alis 18.02. / 18:00 Titania Palast
Ask, Mark ve Ölüm (Love, Deutschmarks and Death) 18.02. / 14:00 Cubix 9
Today is the start of Berlinale’s “Publikumstag” (Audience Day), which usually only happens on the last Sunday of the festival. This year, there’s four days to catch up on all the movies you haven’t seen yet. 🎞
As always, you can find all the times and cinemas below.
And don’t forget: tomorrow at 9 pm CET you can watch the live ceremony of the TEDDY AWARDS via our livestream. You can find our fabulous lineup here.
RERUNS:
Alis 17.02. / 15:30 Filmtheater am Friedrichshain
Bashtaalak sa’at (Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?) 17.02. / 21:00 Cubix 7
Wow, time is flying by – tomorrow night the Berlinale’s Golden Bears are already being awarded! But before that, we have quite a number of fascinating TEDDY movies premiering for you today!
Scroll down to find out about all the films coming out today, and don’t forget to check out the re-runs as well – plenty of fascinating content! 🐻
Synopsis: The German Federal Republic’s 1961 recruitment agreement with Turkey not only brought “guest workers” to Germany but also their music. Cem Kaya’s dense documentary film essay is a tutorial in Turkish-German recent history that tells a tale of assembly line jobs, homesickness and family reunification, the bazaar in the elevated railway station at Berlin’s Bülowstraße, xenophobia and racism, the wistful songs of the early years and the hip-hop of the post-reunification period. These are the stories shared by musicians beginning with Metin Türköz and Yüksel Özkasap, to the psychedelic Derdiyoklar and the chart-topping rapper Muhabbet. Their music has evolved a long way from that of German bands and has always developed out of the Turkish community and its desires. This is the world of Radio Yilmaz, various music cassette labels, protest rocker Cem Karaca’s German exile, and wedding bands that also sing in Kurdish and Arabic to meet the demands of the market. Extensive archival research and an interest in Turkish popular culture are recurring themes in Cem Kaya’s work. With Ak, Mark ve Ölüm, he has created a rhythmic and vividly narrated cinematic encyclopaedia of Turkish music in Germany.
SCREENING TIMES:
15.02. / 16:00 International
15.02. / 16:20 Cubix 2 [Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only]
Synopsis: Since 2017, #MeToo and the no-longer-covered-up abuse of countless women by Harvey Weinstein have called many things into question in the film industry. This documentary analysis of the male gaze in cinema is based on Nina Menkes’ lecture “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression”. In it, Menkes uncovers patriarchal narrative structures that lie behind supposedly classic set-ups and camera angles. Making use of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey’s theses on the objectification and sexualisation of the female body, she shows how aesthetic decisions such as camera movement or lighting influence the perception of women on screen, and how shot design functions as an instrument and a mirror of power relations. In doing so, she determines a connection between established film language and a culture of misogyny that leads to the abuse of women beyond the screen. Her individual analyses of scenes from 120 years of film history demystify many a cult film in the independent canon – because the film language that has been shaped by the patriarchy pervades more than just Hollywood cinema.
Synopsis: Fernanda returns to her uncle’s ranch in Goiás in mid-western Brazil after an absence of many years, bringing the ashes of her deceased adoptive mother back home. Her appearance and her search for the truth about her roots shake the façade of her middle- class family. For her landowner uncle, a conservative mayor of the local municipality who is campaigning for re-election, Fernanda’s investigations and accusations are rapidly becoming a threat. But she remains unyielding in her bid for truth and justice.
In her surreal, fantastical debut, Flávia Neves masterfully interweaves the search for one’s own origins with Brazil’s colonial past. At the heart of this family drama is the confrontation with antiquated traditions, exploitative relationships and with those who profit from them. Fogaréu depicts an inspiring attempt to break out of hardened structures as well as the hope for a new beginning.
SCREENING TIMES:
15.02. / 14:00 Cubix 4 [Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only]
Synopsis: If from Every Tongue It Drips is a hybrid documentary film that uses the framework of quantum physics to explore the ways that personal relationships and political movements at once transcend and challenge time, space, identity, and location. The film follows the lives of a couple living in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka; Ponni writes Rekhti, a form of 19th-century, Urdu, queer poetry; the other, Sarala, is the camera operator. As their personal lives unfold on camera, the lines between rehearsal and reality, location and distance, self and other dissipate and reinforce one another. Simultaneously, through the poet and the camera operator’s daily lives, interconnections between British colonialism, Indian nationalism, and the impact of both on contemporary poetry, dance, and music in South Asia are revealed.
Synopsis: In a home in Columbia, ten young women take a seat, one after another, and close their eyes. They are asked to picture Alis, an imaginary friend, and to bring her story to life in a creative dialogue with the filmmakers. Like the interviewees, Alis used to live on the streets of Bogotá. This imaginary companion is the seed for an extraordinary documentary format, serving as a reflective and delicate point of entry to the protagonists’ own stories. Alis becomes a surface for the projection of past traumas, or the travails of companions who fell by the wayside, and also for life visions and desires for the future. The imaginary friend is a blank slate for exploring individual ideas of freedom, as well as battles that have yet to be fought.
Synopsis: A small film crew ventures into the compartments of Mumbai’s local trains that are reserved for women. “What makes you angry?” is the simple question the filmmaker poses to the train’s female passengers. Acquaintances and women who are encountering each other by chance are invited to reveal their opinions and stories in a space that is public, yet protected. Their answers and observations are manifold: sometimes funny, sometimes depressing, sometimes combative, sometimes resigned, but always honest, they come together to form an increasingly complex tapestry.
Synopsis: Star, a suicidal teen now too old for foster care, develops a candid rapport with An, a student from Shanghai who is assigned to watch her while she is in hospital. A nightly exchange of secrets, text messages and possessions quickly expands the boundaries of their relationship, altering their inner chemistry.
SCREENING TIMES:
15.02. / 18:00 CinemaxX 7
15.02. / 18:35 Cubix 2 [Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only]
RERUNS:
Le variabili dipendenti (The Dependent Variables) 15.02. / 12:30 Filmtheater am Friedrichshain
The third festival day is buzzing with lively events and especially with our delightful premieres – 9 taking place only today! We’ve comprised a list of all the premieres and reruns scheduled for today to make your life easier. Check them out below👇
As if that wasn’t eventful enough, keep an eye out for our TEDDY Talk: The TEDDY Winners Path through a Pandemic. The event will be broadcasted live at 4 PM (CET) at teddyaward.tv/live.
Synopsis: The camera hovers, lost in reverie as voices and sounds waft through the gutted rooms of a building. Archive footage is sometimes projected onto unplastered walls and at others used as a soundtrack as we continue our tour. This is the legendary Chelsea Hotel, famous as the preferred abode of New York’s bohemia from the 1950s to the 1980s. Here, bourgeois society’s misfits – sex workers, poets, queers and artists – were able to find cheap accommodation and form alliances. In this documentary, the remaining tenants from that era grant access to their flats and give us an insight into their lives. They are the focus of a film that interweaves the present with the ghosts of the past. The completion of eight years of luxury refurbishment ahead of the building’s reopening as a hotel is eagerly awaited by some residents and dreaded by others.
Synopsis: James Gregory Atkinson’s performative short film centers the history of the iconic Peacock Chair to interrogate contemporary social contexts and historical concepts of identities. The film engages the chair’s origins in forced prison labor in the Philippines, its status as an internationally traded “exotic” commodity, its use in portrait photography, and its associations with Black radical activists such as Huey P. Newton—to explore ideas of Black masculinities and resistance.
Synopsis: A remote lake in the North American landscape. The sand is yellow, the sky is blue and the mountains distant; there is nary a tree far and wide to provide shade. Faye is spending her days here in a trailer, with two books and a radio, leisurely birdwatching and stargazing. With her wiry build, wild blonde hair and hands that speak of a life of labour, she fits in perfectly here. Anything that breaks, she simply fixes; the only time she sits up and takes notice is when there is a knock at the door. Because Faye is waiting for Lito. Their connection goes way back to their youthful love for each other, but for some years now they have also shared the pain of loss – both are widowed. Max Walker-Silverman’s gentle, laconic film is about contemplative introspection, the power of love and the depths of melancholy. Dale Dickey’s portrayal of Faye is a touching mixture of inner strength and fragility, which is also reflected in the impressive natural scenery and a delicate soundtrack.
Synopsis: Four friends – Nic, Leo, Andrea and Raff – tell the stories of their gender transitions. Looking back on their childhood and youth, they share their personal memories and experiences. Even if they did not always conform to the social norms of femininity – all four were socialised as girls. Each of their gender biographies may be different, yet there are parallels. This helps them to understand each other and feel less alone. The discussions with partners, the choice of pronouns, the hormone therapy, decisions about surgery and dealing with the authorities – the processes are diverse, and lengthy. In the strictly binary world we live in, the decision to determine one’s own gender identity is a subversive act.
Synopsis: In his dreams, bathed in a brilliant glow, Manu and his best friend Felipe are inching closer and closer together, yet they never kiss. A confusing desire, as Manu is dating Azul, and the two are about to have sex for the first time. In Mariano Biasin’s Sublime, a niggling desire simmers beneath the surface of 16-year-old Manu’s everyday life, his emotional turmoil bubbling up and revealing itself in indirect ways – during his attempt to find the right chords for his latest lyrics and in his flights of melancholic introspection, at band practices with the rest of the guys or during supper with his parents. Cautiously, with increasing resignation, Manu keeps trying to solve the conundrum: how do you avoid losing something precious, when it’s the very thing tearing you up inside?
Synopsis: While their classmates endure the visit to the concert with pranks, Pietro and Tommaso secretly get closer to each other in the box. During the playing of Vivaldi’s composition, their lips touch. When Tommaso invites Pietro to his home shortly afterwards, the tension is still in the air. The desire, however, soon gives way to an ambiguity that particularly irritates the otherwise cautious Pietro. What did the kiss mean?
Synopsis: A city at dawn. Traffic is flowing like red and white blood cells. A man sleeps, enveloped in the darkness – he is beautiful, he is naked, it is hot. We will never know what he is dreaming. The sun rises and the façades of the skyscrapers begin to sparkle
Synopsis: In the shadow of a colonial past and a neo-capitalist present, Inti, Jai and Pauline are searching for their place in a world that was not made for them. As they roam the neighbourhood looking for somewhere to settle, they question their parents about faith, spirituality, roots and their experiences of migration. They decide to occupy an empty bank building in order to fill it with their memories, dreams and role play. A portrait of our time that oscillates between documentary, performance art and surrealism.
Synopsis: A Hollywood villa on a sultry summer night. The escort does what he was hired to do and gives his client the illusion he has paid for. “I’ll make you a star”, the customer says, before the tide turns abruptly and the power dynamics are unsettled. A revenge movie of the queer kind.
