\nThe Taste of Betel Nut<\/p>\n
Hong Kong, China 2017
\n84′
\nDirector: Hu Jia<\/p>\n
Li Qi is working for a dolphin show, his friend Ren Yu chugs along with his mobile karaoke, working the surfers\u2019 beach along the coast of Hainan Island where they both live. The tourists are delighted by Ren\u2019s physical similarity to the screen actor Leslie Cheung and are happy to pay for a photo with him \u2013 or to get drunk with him. When a young woman joins this polyamorous couple, things are no different at first and an open, three-way relationship would seem possible. Together, Li Qi, Ren Yu and Bai Ling set out to test the limitations of a restrictive society as well as their own sexuality. But then, something happens that rocks the protagonists to the core and will have a deep and lasting effect on them … Director Hu Jia portrays a generation that would appear to move casually between tradition and a courageously alternative way of life. The film\u2019s unusual setting is compelling from the word go. Largely without dialogue, this drama instead relies on small gestures that are full of meaning. The film\u2019s quietly explicit images tell a tale of love, sex, trust and brutality \u2013 providing a picture of everyday life in China that is seldom seen on the big screen.<\/p>\n
18.02. \/ 22:30 CinemaxX 7<\/span><\/p>\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 18.02. \/ 12:30 CinemaxX 7<\/span><\/p>\n Ceux qui font les r\u00e9volutions \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 n’ont fait que se creuser un tombeau<\/strong><\/span> Canada \u2018After twelve weeks of striking, assemblies, solidarity, arrest, protest, what do we get? Nothing.\u2019 As the 2012 ‘Maple Spring’ student protest movement in Quebec slowly ebbs away, a dark storm of violence gathers. Driven by a growing sense of frustrated powerlessness and a longing for a new life, Klas Batalo, Ordine Nuovo, Tumulto and Giutizia form an avant-garde splinter group. Their deep-rooted hostility towards the prevailing social order finds an ambiguous political expression in acts that include guerilla pranks and throwing Molotov cocktails. Using powerful imagery shaped by a century of political aesthetics, the film is a collage of scenes and documentary fragments that makes the isolation of the four protagonists tangible. In the course of a path formed by ideals and doubt, we witness their radicalism as it increasingly turns inwards.<\/p>\n 18.02. \/ 20:00 HKW<\/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 18.02. \/ 17:00 CineStar 7<\/span><\/p>\n Cuateros<\/strong><\/span> Argentina 2016 Albertina Carri wants to make a film about Isidro Vel\u00e1zquez, an almost mythical outlaw figure from northern Argentina who was shot dead by police in 1967. She\u2019s not the only one interested in him: her sociologist father Roberto Carri wrote a book on him called \u201cPreRevolutionary Forms of Violence\u201d and a film was made about his story, although both father and film disappeared during the Dirty War. Legends, families, political alignments, cinema: none offer a stable foothold and Carri\u2019s passage through them is like wandering a garden of forking paths, only to arrive at a landscape of cracked earth and thorns. Carri\u2019s narration is anyway not what it might once have been, a mother doesn\u2019t tell things the same way as a daughter. Legends, families, political alignments, cinema: each produces images and these are what appear on the screen, in one channel, three channels, five. It\u2019s all material plucked from an archive and a wonderfully eccentric one at that: news reels, ads, home videos, interviews, movies, abstract forms. Images that could stem from old films, lost films, new films, possible films, impossible films; this is a film for which no other images will do<\/p>\n 18.02. \/ 15:00 Kino Arsenal 1<\/span><\/p>\n Dream Boat<\/strong><\/span><\/span> Germany 2017 One week on a cruise ship, with parties, fun and new friendships. The all-gay clientele on board discuss topics such as identity, the body beautiful and the search for sex. Every evening is dedicated to a new theme, challenging the passengers to ever more extravagant, body-hugging outfits. In the cabins however, the talk is more than skin deep as the men open up about their private lives. Marek, a young Polish man just wants to be accepted and loved as a human being and not just because of his taut body. Dipankar from India has just recently come out; he and Palestinian Ramzi are revelling in the kind of freedom they can only dream about in their homophobic societies back home. Martin is HIV positive and ponders hedonistic ways, while Philippe from France observes the proceedings on board serenely from his wheelchair. In his feature film debut director Ferland Milewski succeeds in providing a look behind the scenes of an ostensibly superficial world. His humorous approach helps him create a genuine bond with the protagonists who talk openly about gay desires, free love and good old-fashioned monogamy. 18.02. \/ 20:00 CineStar 7<\/span><\/p>\n Final Stage<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Germany 2017 The present, the whole present and nothing but the present. A young man on a footbridge, a bus departs, his friend is gone. This is followed by a majestic parade through a shopping centre. This central shot in the film is a fragile balancing act between documentary observation and subtle direction. Deliberately asynchronous sound serves to heighten the sense that events are nothing more than a construction of an apparently familiar reality. The boy’s melancholic bearing, and the way the film unfolds, are embedded in an extremely expressive, albeit narratively minimalistic, dramaturgy of colour. Vibrant colours introduce each individual sequence: blue, green, yellow, orange, red.<\/p>\n 18.02. \/ 12:00 Colosseum 1<\/span><\/p>\n Freak Show<\/span><\/span><\/strong> USA 2017 Being fabulous, no: being relentlessly fabulous is damn hard work. I should know. I’ve dedicated my life to the pursuit of it.\u2019 Could Billy Bloom be like everyone else if he wanted to? It would certainly save him a whole lot of trouble. But he has absolutely no desire to be like them. When others call him theatrical, he takes it as a compliment; when his classmates feel provoked by his drive to be different, it only motivates him further. \u2018The nail that sticks out gets hammered down\u2019, his father warns him. That does not deter Billy from deciding to run for homecoming queen. Somewhere in-between David Bowie, Lady Gaga, Freddy Mercury and Oscar Wilde, in the transgressive space of pop culture and dressed up as a high school comedy with wit, heart and a dazzling cast, Freak Show is about the violence of conformity and the power of self-determination<\/p>\n 18.02. \/ 15:30 Zoo Palast 1<\/span><\/p>\n 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 18.02. \/ 12:00 Zoo Palast 2<\/span><\/p>\n Mein wunderbares West-Berlin <\/span><\/strong><\/span> Germany 2017 In West Berlin in the 1960s it was possible to find bars where men could be left to themselves \u2013 a fact that was to turn the city into a magnet for young gay men. The protagonists of this film, all still active members of the community today, recall those early years in the city. Theirs are memories of a community that fought steadily for its existence and for change, right up to the fall of the Wall. Faced with considerable social repression in the 1970s, a collective gay identity began to emerge, and the \u2018West Berlin homosexual campaign\u2019 called for the abolition of paragraph 175 and the overthrow of patriarchy. Ruined buildings become the venues for new ways of living together such as all-male communes or the \u2018queer house\u2019. Cottaging, East-West affairs, leather bars, drag performances in the subway \u2013 an anarchic kind of joy outshines past suffering. A decade later, AIDS was to hit Berlin. After Out in Ost-Berlin (Out In East Berlin) Jochen Hick explores queer lifestyles in the West of the city and the roots of a fascination that the metropolis still holds as a refuge \u2013 and not just for gay men. A fascinating journey through time featuring previously unpublished archive material.<\/p>\n 18.02. \/ 22:30 CineStar 7<\/span><\/p>\n The Misandrists<\/span><\/strong><\/span> Germany 2017 91′ Somewhere in Ger(wo)many … A radical female \u2018army of lovers\u2019 is preparing itself for a final revolution. Women are discussing, campaigning, menstruating and pondering the decline of patriarchy, learning about single sex reproduction, and having sex. But then of all people a young soldier appears, seeking refuge at this feminist convent; moreover, one of the women-warriors turns out to be a police informer. This brings their strict superintendent on the scene. And \u2018big mother\u2019 is not amused. \u201cTwo cocks! And a cop! In our house! That\u2019s intolerable!\u201d But one question remains: is it possible to have equality in a corrupt system? Or will cocks need to roll first?! As if Valerie Solanas had directed an episode of \u2018Schoolgirl\u2019s Report\u2019, Bruce LaBruce\u2019s latest piece of shenanigans revolves around a utopian world without men. The Canadian director, experienced Berlinale guest and Teddy award-winner (for Pierrot Lunaire) serves up a merry, anarchic dance in which political slogans fall as trippingly off the tongue as religious acclamations. Their sermons are \u2013 naturally \u2013 rounded off with \u2018A(wo)men\u2019. Sarcastic, very funny \u2013 and as queer as it gets.<\/p>\n 18.02. \/ 22:00 Zoo Palast 2<\/span><\/p>\n Pieles<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Spain 2017 Samantha, Guille, Ana and Cristian all have something in common \u2013 and yet they couldn\u2019t be more diverse. Their bodies are different to those of other people; be it the mouth, the left side of the face, the texture of the skin or the feeling that your legs don\u2019t belong to your body. They all live and love hidden away in strangely artificial interiors. As \u2018freaks\u2019, they rarely go out onto the street. A confrontation with the rest of the world could have fatal consequences. Director Eduardo Casanova\u2019s strictly symmetrical, pink and purple world is populated by \u2018deformed\u2019 people that include the fat, the small, and a woman born without eyes who works as a sex worker. Spanish director Casanova\u2019s episodic feature-length debut is an extension of his previous shorts. Making use of deliberately artificial images he explores the lives of those who, living on the margins of society, are rarely granted places in which they feel secure. However, their situation is not as hopeless as it at first seems, and beauty is a term that is redefined at least once during the course of the film.<\/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 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 18.02. \/ 17:30 Cubix 7<\/span><\/p>\n Ulrike\u2018s Brain<\/span><\/span><\/strong> Germany\/Canada 2017 Referencing sixties B-movies like They Saved Hitler\u2019s Brain and The Brain That Would Not Die, Ulrike\u2019s Brain finds Doctor Julia Feifer (Susanne Sachsse) arriving at an academic conference with an organ box. Inside the box: the brain of Ulrike Meinhof, which was saved by the authorities along with the brains of the three other leaders of the RAF after their deaths in Stammheim prison. Doctor Feifer can communicate telepathically with Ulrike\u2019s brain, which is directing her to lead a new feminist revolution. To that end, she is searching for the ideal female body to transplant Ulrike\u2019s Brain into. At the same time, her arch-rival, Detlev Schlesinger, an extreme right-wing ideologue, arrives at the conference with the ashes of Michael K\u00fchnen, the former German neo-Nazi leader and infamous homosexual who died of AIDS in 1989. When the two Frankenstein\u2019s monsters of the extreme left and the extreme right meet, chaos ensues.<\/p>\n 18.02. \/ 20:00 Kino Arsenal 1<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What a beautiful night my friends! What a spectacular Award Ceremony! Conchita Wurst was there, Udo Kier and even Andrea Nahles (even if she doesn\u00b4t really fit\u00a0into this list). The TEDDY trophies were given away and we all danced till our toes were bleeding. So maybe we should do something calm today\u2026 how about going … Continue reading Day 10: Destroy what destroys you<\/span> ![\"OK_201719583_4-min\"](\"http:\/\/blog.teddyaward.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/OK_201719583_4-min.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nBones of Contention<\/p>\n
\n75′
\nDirector: Andrea Weiss<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nThose Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves<\/p>\n
\n183′
\nDirector: Mathieu Denis, Simon Lavoie<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nChavela<\/p>\n
\n90′,
\nDirector: Catherine Gund, Daresha KyiHaupts\u00e4chlich<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nRustlers<\/p>\n
\n85′
\nDirector: Albertina Carri<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nDream Boat<\/p>\n
\n92′
\nDirector: Tristan Ferland Milewski<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nFinal Stage<\/p>\n
\n27′
\nDirector: Nicolaas Schmidt<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nFreak Show<\/p>\n
\n95′
\nDirector: Trudie Styler<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nGod’s Own Country<\/p>\n
\n104′
\nDirector: Francis Lee<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nMy Wonderful West Berlin<\/p>\n
\n97
\nDirector: Jochen Hick
\nCast: Romy Haag, Maximilian Lenz, Ades Zabel<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nThe Misandrists<\/p>\n
\nDirector: Bruce LaBruce
\nCast: Susanne Sachsse, Viva Ruiz, Kembra Pfahler, Caprice Crawford<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nSkins<\/p>\n
\n77′
\nDirector: Eduardo Casanova
\nCast: Ana Polvorosa, Candela Pe\u00f1a, Carmen Machi, Macarena G\u00f3mez<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n 18.02. \/ 22:45 Cubix 8<\/span><\/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>
\n 18.02. \/ 11:00 CinemaxX 1<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\nStrong Island<\/p>\n
\n107′
\nDirector: Yance Ford<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
\nUlrike\u2018s Brain<\/p>\n
\n55′
\nDirector: Bruce LaBruce
\nCast: Gertrude Stammheim, Susanne Sachsse, Jonathan Johnson, Saskia Timm<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n