\n
Bones of Contention<\/strong><\/span> USA 2017 There are 120,000 victims of Franco\u2019s regime buried in the unmarked mass graves that stretch for kilometres alongside Spain\u2019s country roads. One of these victims is the world renowned Spanish author Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca, who was shot and killed by the fascists during the early days of the Spanish Civil War. The mystery that surrounds the exact location of his remains has made him a symbol for those seeking to remember and disclose the hidden stories of gays and lesbians under Franco, people who continued to be subjected to violent repression long after the end of the dictatorship. Spain is today one of the most progressive countries when it comes to homosexuality, and yet the nation still refuses to account comprehensively for its dark past before a court of law. Andrea Weiss\u2019 sensitive film gives a voice to the victims from the LGBTIQ* community. Her documentary tells their stories and their struggle for clarification, justice and human rights as well as their continued efforts to provide those who were murdered and \u2018disappeared\u2019 with a dignified burial. Impressive archive material documents this repressed history which finds a painful echo in Lorca\u2019s poetry and music<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 22:30 CineStar 7<\/span><\/p>\n Casting<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Germany 2017 For her first television film \u2013 a remake of Fassbinder\u2019s Die bitteren Tr\u00e4nen der Petra von Kant \u2013 director Vera wants the perfect cast. But the first day of shooting is fast approaching and the numerous casting sessions have yet to find a suitable actress to play the leading role. Although the producer and crew are getting ever more exasperated with Vera, Gerwin is happy about the extra work, as he earns his money as an audition reader, delivering the lines of dialogue to the starry candidates at the various castings. When the male lead suddenly has to back out, Gerwin thinks that this might just be his chance. Director Nicolas Wackerbarth captures the complex essence of Fassbinder\u2019s film and simultaneously creates a profound work of his own. Casting takes an unflinching look at the murky depths of human relationships driven by power, passion and desperation. Yet Wackerbarth also brings bitter truths to light about power relations and dependencies in the German television industry almost in passing. Casting is both intelligent and entertaining, marked by exciting turning points, humour and the breathtaking acting performances by a truly virtuoso ensemble.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 20:00 Colosseum 1<\/span><\/p>\n Chavela<\/strong><\/span><\/span> USA 2017 Singer Chavela Vargas gained a name for herself firstly in Mexico and later worldwide chiefly for her interpretation of traditional rancheras. These songs were mainly composed by men and mostly speak of unfulfilled love for women, world-weariness and loneliness. Chavela performed them with her own unique feeling for rhythm and her distinctively rough and yet vulnerable voice. Her masculine appearance and red poncho made her unmistakable. In Acapulco, which in the 1960s was the playground for the rich and famous in the world of politics and culture, she rubbed shoulders with many celebrities, turning the heads of Frida Kahlo and Lana Turner with her charm and striking beauty. After a 13-year break from performing brought on as a result of her addiction to alcohol she was rediscovered in the 1990s and enjoyed a glorious comeback as the muse of artists and directors such as Pedro Almod\u00f3var. The unpublished material in this film, as well as the interviews with Chavela herself and her contemporaries, colleagues and partners have resulted in an affectionate portrait of a charismatic and exceptional artist – who was openly lesbian throughout her life until her death in 2012 at the age of 93.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 22:30 CinemaxX 7<\/span><\/p>\n Fluid\u00f8<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Germany 2017 It is the year 2060 and AIDS has been eradicated. However, in some, the HIV virus has now mutated into a gene from which a drug can be produced that has become the white powder of the twenty-first century. A virtual scanning system enables the secret police to identify anyone who carries this gene. Meanwhile, elsewhere, young men are hooked up to a system of cables and ordered to produce sperm for the production of pharmaceuticals that will dominate the market. Filmed in Berlin, Taiwan-born multimedia artist and filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang\u2019s science fiction dystopia revolves around a struggle to gain control over the production and exploitation of bodily fluids. Her film is like an orgiastic opera; a breathless round of bodies, secretions, performances and sexual acts often performed in the service of an overriding economy. An unusual, largely experimental and deliberately parapornographic drama in which the borders between the sexes as well as homo-, hetero, bi, trans- or intersexual are constantly blurred.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 22:45 Cubix 7<\/span> God’s Own Country<\/strong><\/span><\/span> Great Britain 2017 Young Johnny is running his ailing father\u2019s farm in Yorkshire, England. The communication between father and son reflects their adverse living and working conditions, the father\u2019s utterances mostly being restricted to terse criticism of his son. Johnny\u2019s grandmother plays her part stoically. A frustrated Johnny endures his strenuous daily routine. In a bid to escape the harsh daily grind, he has nostrings sex with men, or gets drunk at the local pub. In the spring, a farm hand is taken on for the season. Romanian Gheorghe is the same age as Johnny, who at first eyes him with suspicion. The initial tension between the two men soon gives way to an intense relationship. This opens up completely new prospects but also presents new challenges for Johnny. In his feature-length debut, Francis Lee finds authentic images to depict farm life as one of privation. His film concentrates on the looks and gestures of his characters and their physical proximity. The archaic landscape of \u2018God\u2019s own country\u2019 as the locals call their county, perfectly reflects the turmoil going on inside the protagonists.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 20:15 Cubix 7<\/span> I Am Not Your Negro<\/span><\/span><\/strong> France\/USA\/Belgium\/Switzerland 2016 In June 1979 renowned US writer James Baldwin began work on his last, unfinished text \u2018Remember this House\u2019. His personal memories of his three murdered civil rights friends Malcolm X, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King and his reflections on his own painful experiences as a black American serve to re-write American history. Raoul Peck has turned these thirty hitherto unpublished pages into a powerful collage of archive photographs, excerpts from films and newsreel footage: the boycotts and the resistance against racial segregation in the 1950s and 1960s, the invisibility of black Americans in Hollywood\u2019s legendary works, the AfroAmerican protests against white police brutality that continue to take place even today, Baldwin\u2019s complex relationship with the Black Power Movement and one FBI report\u2019s paranoid view of Baldwin\u2019s homosexuality. A trenchant and disturbing essay about the reality of the lives of African Americans \u2013 lives that are still largely ignored by America\u2019s mainstream. Samuel L Jackson\u2019s voice lends Baldwin\u2019s language suitably poetic, meditative expression.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 11:00 CineStar 7<\/span><\/p>\n Karera ga Honki de Amu toki wa<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Japan 2017 Eleven-year-old Tomo is pretty much left to her own devices. Unwashed dishes are piling up in the sink and supermarket onigiri are all there is to eat again. Tomo\u2019s single mother usually comes home late, and drunk. When she leaves her daughter for good one day the girl has to rely on help from her uncle, who takes in Tomo to live with him and his girlfriend Rinko. At their first meeting Tomo is flabbergasted to discover that Rinko is a transsexual. Rinko immediately sets about taking care of Tomo; not only does she lovingly prepare meals but she also succeeds in creating a new home for the girl. But before long cracks appear in their perfect nest. As in her last film Rentaneko (Panorama 2012) Japanese director Naoko Ogigami offers another story about finding a way out of one\u2019s loneliness; in the case of Tomo and her new family the solution is a mixture of human warmth, good food and the symbolic act of knitting. In quietly concentrated images the film portrays non-normative sexuality as a natural way of life and describes the value of families that are defined not by convention but by a loving, caring environment.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 10:00 CinemaxX 7<\/span><\/p>\n Kometen<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Sweden 2016 The sea. High waves. Dark water. A border fence, two men in hiding. Their flight begins. Only one of them will reach Sweden. One of the men is played by Abdi Aziis, who himself has fled from Somalia to Sweden in order to escape the oppression and persecution of gay men. \u201cHe is our comet\u201d explains director Victor Lindgren, who, in merely a few selected situations, manages to convey the exertions, the deep abyss, the arrival and the loneliness of those who flee. Both men lay alongside each other on a bench, one arm extended across the other\u2019s belly \u2013 an image that symbolizes their intimacy, their shared experience. And in the next moment it\u2019s all gone. Forever. How can life go on? Victor Lindgren\u2019s film Ta av mig was conferred with a TEDDY Award for Best Short Film at the 2013 Berlinale.<\/p>\n Min Homosyster<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Sweden\/Norway 2017 Ten-year-old Cleo has a head full of questions: How can I tell if I’m in love with somebody? How do I know if I prefer boys or girls? Since her older sister began dating another girl, there are new, strange feelings stirring inside Cleo. During a trip to the Norwegian fjords, she broaches the subject with the young couple and is given some helpful advice.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 14:00 CinemaxX 1<\/span><\/p>\n La prima sueca<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Argentina 2016 It’s not long to go until Cata’s 15th birthday and she’s getting more nervous by the day. She’s irritated about her dress, her chilled-out friends, everything! Even her level-headed and reserved cousin from Sweden annoys her. But Cata’s moodiness gradually gives way to tentative feelings of affection. In a sensitive portrayal the two directors gently capture the emotional whirlwind and irritations of a teenager.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 14:00 HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1)<\/span> Ri Chang Dui Hua<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Taiwan 2016 Anu is a tomboy. Although she was married off at a young age \u2013 as was customary in Taiwan in the 1970s \u2013 and had two children, she quickly divorced her violent husband and brought up her daughters alone. Since then her only relationships have been with women who, like her, earn a living as professional mourners at funerals. One of her daughters is filmmaker Hui-chen Huang. It\u2019s considered taboo in Chinese culture to question a mother\u2019s unconditional love, and yet this taboo is exactly the topic of Huang\u2019s intimate portrait. Mother and daughter set off on a journey together into the past during which Anu is confronted by questions that have tormented her daughter for years. In a series of long shots the two women discuss such topics as trust, abuse and cognisance, and yet most of these discussions end in painful silence. Shifting focus in order to plumb the depths of the topic, the director attempts to understand her mother by also talking to her mother\u2019s siblings and ex-lovers. In doing so she paints a picture of changing living conditions for three generations of women in Taiwan.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 20:00 CineStar 7<\/span><\/p>\n Strong Island<\/span><\/span><\/strong> USA\/Denmark 2017 In a phone call at the beginning of Yance Ford\u2019s film an employee for the district attorney refuses to make any more statements regarding the murder of William Ford and declares herself unwilling to take part in his documentary. William was Yance Ford\u2019s brother; his murder in 1992 threw his family into a state of shock. Their devastation came about not just because this young Afro-American man was shot and killed by a white car mechanic for an apparently trifling reason, but also because of what was to follow. Ford\u2019s subjective camera tells the story of a black middle-class family in America, a country which was, and still is, characterised by injustice and racism. His film is a puzzle, the pieces of which cannot be put together. Interweaving personal essay, detective investigation and documentary interviews with friends and relatives, he succeeds in painting a personal and political picture of the mood of this unequal country during the Obama era. Ford\u2019s concentrated, often minimalistic cinematic language describes simmering anger, grief and his own transgender coming out \u2013 as well as the relativity of equal opportunities.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 17:15 CineStar 3<\/span><\/p>\n V\u00eanus – Fil\u00f3 a fadinha l\u00e9sbica<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Brazil 2017 In this animated fairy-tale Filly, a lesbian fairy with nimble fingers, seduces women by day dressed as a boy. But at night something strange happens and soon half the population of Whatsit Village are eagerly queuing up.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 22:45 Cubix 7<\/span> Weirdos<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Canada 2016 \u2018I am a weirdo.\u2019 \u00b7 \u2018Honey, she is a weirdo, too. We are all weirdos. That\u2019s what makes us beautiful.\u2019 In laconic black-and-white, Bruce McDonald tells the humorous story of two adolescent runaways, Kit and Alice. On the eve of the 1976 United States Bicentennial, the film accompanies the two hitchhikers on a turbulent journey through the breathtaking landscape of the Canadian east coast, set to a quintessentially 1970s soundtrack. While Kit wants to start a new life in his glamorous but unstable mother’s artist commune, Alice makes no bones about her longing for romance. Yet in the glow of the crackling campfire of a beach party, they both reach new insights that put their relationship to the test. Likewise, the day following their joyous reunion sees Kit and his mother facing up to some uncomfortable truths.<\/p>\n 16.02. \/ 14:00 CinemaxX 3<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello, dear film lovers! I hope you had a great time on the Berlinale so far; met interesting people, watched inspiring movies and drank a lot of coffee. The preparations for tomorrows Award Ceremony are in full swing and we are full of anticipation. Today we will have our great Diversity Talks again, which you … Continue reading Day 8: Anticipation and Diversity Talks<\/span>
\nBones of Contention<\/p>\n
\n75′
\nDirector: Andrea Weiss<\/p>\n![\"201718062_1\"](\"http:\/\/blog.teddyaward.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/201718062_1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nCasting<\/p>\n
\n91′,
\nDirector: Nicolas Wackerbarth<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nChavela<\/p>\n
\n90′,
\nDirector: Catherine Gund, Daresha KyiHaupts\u00e4chlich<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nFluid\u00f8<\/p>\n
\n80′
\nDirector: Shu Lea Cheang<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n 16.02. \/ 22:45 Cubix 8<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\nGod’s Own Country<\/p>\n
\n104′
\nDirector: Francis Lee<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n 16.02. \/ 20:15 Cubix 8<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\nI Am Not Your Negro<\/p>\n
\n93′
\nDirector: Raoul Peck<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nClose-Knit<\/p>\n
\n127′
\nDirector: Naoko Ogigami
\nCast: Toma Ikuta, Rinka Kakihara, Kenta Kiritani<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nThe Comet<\/p>\n
\n11′
\nDirector: Victor Lindgren
\nCast: Abdi Aziis<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n 16.02. \/ 16:00 CinemaxX 5<\/span>
\n 16.02. \/ 21:30 City Kino Wedding<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\nMy Gay Sister<\/p>\n
\n15′
\nDirector: Lia Hietala
\nCast: Juliette Safavi, Tina Pourdavoy, Erika A. Coleman<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nSwedish Cousin<\/p>\n
\n20′
\nDirector: In\u00e9s Mar\u00eda Barrionuevo, Agustina San Mart\u00edn
\nCast: Mar\u00eda Paula Mattio, Cecilia Valenzuela Gioia, \u00c1mbar Taborda Ceballos, Nazarena Garc\u00eda<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n 16.02. \/ 17:00 CinemaxX 1<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\nSmall Talk<\/p>\n
\n88′
\nDirector: Hui-chen Huang<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nStrong Island<\/p>\n
\n107′
\nDirector: Yance Ford<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nVenus – Filly the lesbian little fairy<\/p>\n
\n6′
\nDirector: S\u00e1vio Leite
\nCast: Helena Ignez<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n 16.02. \/ 22:45 Cubix 8<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\nWeirdos<\/p>\n
\n84′
\nDirector: Bruce McDonald
\nCast: Dylan Authors, Julia Sarah Stone, Molly Parker, Allan Hawco<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n