Tag Archives: TEDDY AWARD

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TEDDY TODAY: 16.02.2022

February 16, 2022 ruxi

Tonight’s the big night and the Golden Bears of the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival will be awarded. The TEDDY team is also getting antsy – only two more days until our very own award show, which will be streamed LIVE from Berlin’s Volksbühne on Friday at 9pm CET.

And while you’re getting hyped up for our show, you can still catch some of the movies premiering today. Discover all the times and cinemas below – plus the re-runs! 🎬

PREMIERES:

CONCERNED CITIZEN

Directed by: Idan Haguel
Israel, 2022
82′

Synopsis: Ben plants a tree on the street in front of his house in Neve Sha’anan, a migrant neighbourhood in the south of Tel Aviv. The district is on the up, and Ben has bought and upgraded a flat here together with his partner Raz. This gay couple now enjoys a settled existence, their days are structured by a well-established routine and everything is in its proper place. Time then, to tackle their desire to have children. And so, assiduously and conscientiously, they set about searching for a suitable egg donor and surrogate mother. One day, when a neighbourly conflict escalates over the tree he has planted, Ben becomes witness to brutal police violence against an Eritrean. The incident upsets his self-image and his plans for a life together with Raz.

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 16:00 Zoo Palast 1

DIVA

Directed by: Nicolas Cilins
Switzerland, 2021
29′

Synopsis: Diva is a fan letter to Diva Cat Thy, a Vietnamese transwoman, street food vendor, and performer, who openly shares her life and struggles daily on social media. Trying to bridge distances of both geography and language, the French director uses found footage posted online by Diva and her community to get in touch with her. He has never met her, cannot travel to Vietnam due to COVID-19 restrictions, and relies on his boyfriend, an Australian of Vietnamese origins, who helps translate the footage and acts as an intermediary. In a conversation constructed through subtitles and surtitles, the film not only reveals the filmmaker’s adoration for Diva, but also his and his partner’s process of understanding and making meaning of Diva’s life as well as their own in relation to it. Diva’s life, on the streets of Saigon as a transitory street food vendor, online as a social media celebrity, and on stage as a bingo singer and circus performer, is interwoven with the processes of looking at (or watching) her and of translation, as well as with a reflection about queer identity, distance, intimacy, and incoherent histories. Diva is a fleeting moment in a woman’s life, one that promises to reach out to a wider queer and solidarity community, blurring the spheres of the online and the real.

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 20:00 Kino Arsenal 1

16.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9

HOME WHEN YOU RETURN

Directed by: Carl Elsaesser
USA, 2021
30′

Synopsis: A double exposure, a portrait of a body, a house that oscillates between its narrative past and its literal presence. The melodramatic, 1950s films of amateur filmmaker Joan Thurber Baldwin are psychically projected onto the house in which my grandmother raised seven kids as it is cleaned out and put up for sale after she passed away. Upholding the narrative structures of melodrama that often center around men, even when the films are about women, the film asks the viewer, as Thurber says in her introduction, to pay attention to the peripheries. (Carl Elsaesser)

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 20:00 Kino Arsenal 1

THE RISING

Directed by: Ed Lilly, Thora Hilmarsdottir, Paul Walker and Carl Tibbetts
United Kingdom, 2022
85′

Synopsis: “I’m still here!” shouts 19-year-old Neve Kelly at her mother, but she does not react. Neve is horrified to discover that she herself is dead. Realising that people can’t see her, she looks on as friends and family worry why she has not come home after the party last night and form search parties to comb the forest for her. Neve takes care of her battered body, washes the blood off the back of her head and changes her dirty clothes. She has no memory of last night. What on earth happened to her? Determined to find her killer, she starts investigating her own death. She uncovers deeply buried secrets and is forced to re-examine everything about her life and the people she cared about.

SCREENING TIMES:

16.02. / 18:45 Zoo Palast 1

RERUNS:

Alis
16.02. / 20:00 Urania

Aos dezasseis (At Sixteen)
16.02. / 14:00 Urania
16.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9

Ak, Mark ve Ölüm (Love, Deutschmarks and Death)
16.02. / 17:00 Titania Palast

Blaues Rauschen (Blue Noise)
16.02. / 14:00 Urania
16.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power
16.02. / 15:00 Zoo Palast 2

Fogaréu
16.02. / 12:00 Zoo Palast 2

If from Every Tongue It Drips
16.02. / 14:00 Werkstattkino@silent green

Jail Bird in a Peacock Chair
16.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9

Ladies Only
16.02. / 14:30 Cubix 6

Lay Me by the Shore
16.02. / 11:00 Urania

Queens of the Qing Dynasty
16.02. / 15:00 Cubix 7

Soum
16.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9

Starfuckers
16.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9

Terminal Norte (North Terminal)
16.02. / 17:00 CinemaxX 2

Três tigres tristes (Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter)
16.02. / 20:00 Werkstattkino@silent green

Tytöt tytöt tytöt (Girl Picture)
16.02. / 20:30 Cubix 8

West by God
16.02. / 14:00 Urania

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TEDDY TODAY: 15.02.2022

February 15, 2022 ruxi

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! 🐻

PREMIERES:

AK, MARK VE ÖLÜM (Love, Deutschmarks and Death)

Directed by: Cem Kaya
Germany, 2022
96′

Film still Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm, © filmfaust, Film Five

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]

BRAINWASHED: SEX-CAMERA-POWER

Directed by: Nina Menkes
USA, 2022
107′

CalArts Hosts Nina Menkes – Sex and Power

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

15.02. / 12:30 Zoo Palast 1

FOGARÉU

Directed by: Flávia Neves
Brazil, France, 2022
100′

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]

15.02. / 22:00 Zoo Palast 1

IF FROM EVERY TONGUE IT DRIPS

Directed by: Sharlene Bamboat
Canada, United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, 2021
68′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

15.02. / 20:00 Kino Arsenal 1

ALIS

Directed by: Clare Weiskopf & Nicolás van Hemelryck
Colombia, Romania, Chile, 2022
84′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

15.02. / 17:30 HKW

LADIES ONLY

Directed by: Rebana Liz John
Germany, India, 2021
79′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

15.02. / 18:45 International

QUEENS OF THE QING DYNASTY

Directed by: Ashley McKenzie
Canada, 2022
122′

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

Aos dezasseis (At Sixteen)
15.02. / 20:30 Cubix 8

Blaues Rauschen (Blue Noise)
15.02. / 20:30 Cubix 8

Jail Bird in a Peacock Chair
15.02. / 11:00 Kino Arsenal 1

Sab changa si (All Was Good)
15.02. / 14:00 Werkstattkino@silent green

Terminal norte (North Terminal)
15.02. / 20:30 Cubix 7

West by God
15.02. / 20:30 Cubix 8

White Sands Crystal Foxes
15.02. / 19:00 Zeiss-Großplanetarium

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TEDDY TODAY: 13.02.2022

February 13, 2022 ruxi

“Hectic” barely begins to cover the start of the 36^th TEDDY AWARD, but nothing makes us happier than running back and forth and preparing all the upcoming events and screenings for you!

Without further ado, here are today’s wonderful TEDDY premieres:

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the list of reruns. 🐻

PREMIERES:

CALCINCULO (Swing Ride)

Directed by: Chiara Bellosi
Italy, Switzerland 2022
90′

Film still, © Simona Pampallona / tempesta

Synopsis: Benedetta, 15, lives in rural Italy with her parents and her two little sisters. After work, her father enjoys tinkering with cars while her mother takes out her frustration on Benedetta. When a funfair sets up on the family’s doorstep, she meets a fairground worker named Amanda who lives a self-determined life and defies gender norms. Benedetta is immediately fascinated by the older Amanda’s self- confidence and independence, and school quickly fades into the background. The two barely talk; their cautious friendship is not one fuelled by grand emotions but rather by genial affection, curiosity and unspoken acknowledgement.

SCREENING TIMES:

13.02. / 16:00 Zoo Palast 1

13.02. / 18:25 Cubix 3 (Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only)

ONE BIG BAG

Directed by: Every Ocean Hughes
USA, United Kingdom 2021
40′

Synopsis: A millennial death doula introduces us to the world of end-of-life care. With a matter-of-fact demeanor and intense physicality, she guides us into the largely uncharted waters of corpse care—practical, political, and spiritual. She performs her knowledge within a field of props that are the tools of her trade, kept in a “mobile corpse kit”—everyday items that she manipulates to profound use. The film, drawn from workshops, research, and interviews conducted with several end-of-life doulas from different cultural backgrounds, is a skill share, threaded with humor, grief, unknowing, and a desire for justice. The doula’s work encourages us to turn towards that which we strive so hard to avoid.

SCREENING TIMES:

13.02. / 14:00 Kino Arsenal 1

WHITE SANDS CRYSTAL FOXES

Directed by: Liz Rosenfeld
Germany 2021
34′

Synopsis: White Sands Crystal Foxes is an experimental film journey through the point of view of a young queer person who daydreams about the erotics of a world where humans are willfully in submission to nature, and foxes are the only mammals still able to procreate. In this speculative world, in heightened states of emotion, crystals form from human secretions, such as tears, cum, and piss, and are considered to be valuable sources of energy. Foxes are polyamorous creatures slowly becoming the dominant mammals populating the world. Holes are infinite portals, social architectures, thresholds, and energy conductors. Drawing connections between chemical warfare, climate change, sustainable energy, and queering time and space, Liz Rosenfeld transforms a 360° immersive environment (a planetarium) into a speculative future lexicon of flesh, holes, crystals, and foxes.

SCREENING TIMES:

13.02. / 21:30 Zeiss-Großplanetarium

RERUNS:

Bashtaalak sa’at (Shall I compare you to a summer’s day?)
13.02. / 18:00 Cubix 6

Dreaming Walls
13.02. / 12:00 Zoo Palast 2
13.02. / 13:35 Cubix 4 (Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only)

A Love Song
13.02. / 13:00 International
13.02. / 16:00 Cubix 1 (Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only)

Mars Exalté (Exalted Mars)
13.02. / 12:00 Cubix 6

Nel mio nome (Into My Name)
13.02. / 15:00 Zoo Palast 2

Sublime
13.02. / 11:15 Cubix 3 (Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only)
13.02. / 15:30 Filmtheater am Friedrichshain

Le variabili dipendenti (The Dependent Variables)
13.02. / 17:30 Cubix 8

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TEDDY TODAY: 12.02.2022

February 12, 2022 ruxi

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.

PREMIERES:

DREAMING WALLS

Directed by: Amélie van Elmbt & Maya Duverdier
Belgium, France, USA, Netherlands, Sweden, 2022
80′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 15:30 International

JAIL BIRD IN A PEACOCK CHAIR

Directed by: James Gregory Atkinson
Germany, USA, 2021
4′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 20:00 Werkstattkino@silent green

A LOVE SONG

Directed by: Max Walker-Silverman
USA, 2022
81′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 19:00 Zoo Palast 1

NEL MIO NOME (Into My Name)

Directed by: Nicolò Bassetti
Italy, 2022
93′

Film still Into My Name, © Nuovi Paesaggi Urbani Art Of Panic

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 12:30 Zoo Palast 1

SUBLIME

Directed by: Mariano Biasin
Argentina, 2022
100′

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?

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 20:00 Urania

LE VARIABILI DIPENDENTI (The Dependent Variables)

Directed by: Lorenzo Tardella
Italy, 2022
16′

Film still The Dependent Variables,© Sperimentale di Cinematografia

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?

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 14:00 HKW

MARS EXALTÉ (Exalted Mars)

Directed by: Jean-Sébastien Chauvin
France, 2022
18′

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

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 21:30 Cubix 9

SOUM

Directed by: Alice Brygo
France, 2021
31′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 12:00 Cubix 6

12.02. / 18:30 Cubix 9

STARFUCKERS

Directed by: Antonio Marziale
USA, 2022
14′

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.

SCREENING TIMES:

12.02. / 12:00 Cubix 6

12.02. / 18:30 Cubix 9

RERUNS:

Berdreymi (Beautiful Beings)
12.02. / 21:00 Zoo Palast 2

Jet Lag
12.02. / 18:00 Cubix 6

Nelly & Nadine
12.02. / 12:00 Zoo Palast 2
12.02. / 18:00 Eva Lichtspiele

Peter von Kant
12.02. / 12:00 Friedrichstadt-Palast

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TEDDY TODAY: 11.02.2022

February 11, 2022 ruxi

Every year we count the days until the next Berlinale and each year it’s worth the wait! To mark the second festival day, we’ve listed below today’s most fabulous film premieres that you definitely don’t want to miss.

For all the other screenings available today, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and enjoy them enough for us as well!

PREMIERES:

JET LAG

Directed by: Zheng Lu Xinyuan
Switzerland, Austria, 2022
111′

Synopsis: One journey begins in Graz, in April 2020, the director’s trip back to China in the midst of the lockdown: flight connections on a cracked phone screen, hazmat suits on the aeroplane, tape sealing the hotel room door. But it also intermingles with another earlier journey: the family trip from China to Myanmar to find out what happened to great-grandfather, who left in the 1940s and never came back. The director films both trips and everything around them too, that’s why it’s so hard to keep things apart, always the same fascination for patterns and textures, the same grainy video in black and white, the same eye for unlikely beauty, the same unflinching gaze.

SCREENING TIMES:

11.02. / 13:30 Kino Arsenal 1

11.02. / 16:10 Cubix 4 (Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only)

NELLY & NADINE

Directed by: Magnus Gertten
Sweden, Belgium, Norway, 2022
92′

Synopsis: The voice of opera singer Nelly resonates in the middle of Ravensbrück concentration camp. Nelly and Nadine met for the first time at Christmas in 1944. They found each other again after liberation and were to stay together for the rest of their lives. Today, Nelly’s granddaughter Sylvie is about to be confronted with her grandmother’s legacy, locked in a box. The photographs, Super 8 footage and audio recordings as well as the poetic and harrowing diary entries that she comes across describe not only her grandmother’s memories of the camp, but also tell the story of her life with Nadine – a relationship that was never referred to as such by the family.

SCREENING TIMES:

11.02. / 16:00 International

11.02. / 16:50 Cubix 2 (Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only)

BASHTAALAK SA’AT (Shall I Compare You to a Summer’s Day?)

Directed by: Mohammad Shawky Hassan
Egypt, Lebanon, Germany, 2022
66′

Synopsis: A glance leads to a smile, a smile to a rendezvous: every love story begins the same way. These narratives are stored in songs and poems and live on beyond their inevitable endings, as Shakespeare’s titular sonnet 18 also suggests. In Mohammad Shawky Hassan’s metafictional essay, a female narrator who wishes to tell the story of a love between two men encounters a polyamorous chorus of lovers, and this oft-told tale is multiplied. In Club Scheherazade, there is no protagonist, and every song has various versions. Heteronormative dramaturgy is challenged polyphonically and across a range of media: lovers ask each other about threesomes, Grindr contacts and past dates. Pop clichés are twisted, heartache permeates the men’s singing, and poems by Wadih Saadeh are read out while a lover’s dirty laundry is aired. The narrator mischievously tries for a happy ending as her characters exit the story. “If pain could be forgotten through words,” we hear at one point, “no lover would ever have to walk away wounded.”

SCREENING TIMES:

11.02. / 20:00 Kino Arsenal 1

BERDREYMI (Beautiful Beings)

Directed by: Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson
Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Czech Republic, 2022
123′

Film still © Sturla Brandth Grøvlen / Join Motion Pictures

Synopsis: Fourteen-year-old Balli is something of a misfit. He lives with his drug-addicted mother in a squalid house and is bullied by his classmates. A stepfather who “thought the gun wasn’t loaded” has left him with a glass eye. But then Balli meets three boys of his own age – Addi, Konni and Siggi – and a friendship gently develops. For the first time in his life, Balli finds that he is able to connect, especially with Addi, whose mother believes in “the subconscious”. Addi is fighting his own demons and, when his visions appear to indicate that Balli’s brutal stepfather can no longer be tolerated, the boys decide to act.

SCREENING TIMES:

11.02. / 15:30 Zoo Palast 1

11.02. / 16:10 Cubix 1 [Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only]

RERUNS:

Peter von Kant
11.02. / 11:00 CinemaxX 9

Viens je t’emmène (Nobody’s Hero)
11.02. / 11:45 Cubix 2 (Screening for industry professionals | With accreditation only)
11.02. / 13:30 International