Teddy Awards Celebrate Queer Cinema

Although there is a clearly defined international circuit of gay and lesbian film festivals around the world (totalling more than 70 different events), the “queen of the crop” definitely remains the Teddy Award, which is given to LGBT films premiering at the Berlinale. The gay Oscar is not only a prize to be coveted but also is accompanied with one of Berlin’s hottest ticket parties, held last evening.

Tihe eight members of the international jury are all organizers of gay film festivals, including Cosimo Santoro (Turino GL Festival, Italy), Emina Trumic (Queer Sarajevo Festival, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Justine Barda (Seattle International Film Festival, USA), Kyle Stephan (British Film Institute, UK), Manny de Guerre (Side by Side Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia), Mercedes Martín (Llamale H: Uruguay International Film Festival about Sexual and Gender Diversity), Rudi Fürstberger (Verzaubert Filmfestival, Germany) and Stephen Kent Jusick (Mix Festival, New York).

Winner of the Best Feature Film Teddy Award was RAGING SUN, RAGING SKY (Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo) by Mexican director Julián Hernández. The jury cited the film for “its masterful cinematography and its visionary use of color and sound - for its explorations of love, desire and sexuality within the framework of ancient mythology, juxtaposed with modern urbanity.”

Best Documentary honors were awarded to FIG TREES by Canadian director John Greyson, a prolific pioneer of gay cinema since the 1980s. The jury applauded his latest work as “an operatic tour de force smashes conventional barriers of form and genre to reinvent the documentary.” Integrating personal histories with an indictment of governments and pharmaceutical companies, FIG TREES colorfully expands the conversation about AIDS and AIDS activism from local struggles to global collaboration.

Winner of the Best Short Film was A HORSE IS NOT A METAPHOR by veteran American director Barbara Hammer. The jury praised the film as “an intimate visual essay about her journey to survive ovarian cancer - the film continues her ongoing investigation of the body and sexuality as well as the transformational possibilities of hope and healing within us all.”

Two special awards were announced with great fanfare at the chic awards gala. Iconic actor Joe Dallesandro, the erotic object of desire in such Andy Warhol classics as TRASH, received a special honor and was wildly applauded by a crowd of gay and straight admirers. English actor John Hurt, whose impersonation of English gay pioneer Quentin Crisp in the films THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT (1974) and AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK (2009), was honored for his outstanding acting performance in what has become an iconic lionizing of a true gay icon.