Tue, Feb 15

TEDDY TODAY

deutsch
Be my Valentine!
As it wouldn’t be exhausting enough – Valentine’s Day is happen in the middle of the movie marathon! In the dawn my girlfriend pushed a cadeau d’amour below my pillow. There I am -standing or better lying ashamed like a husband who forgot the anniversary again. For reasons of compensation I manage to find a ticket for the Kids Film Festival in my pyjama pants! My better half was watching therefore the Israeli film by Shmuel Peleg Haimovitch. Afterwards she’s pretty devastated and proclaims a new BERLINALE rule: Never see kids’ movies with kids! They are screaming, make odd comments, laugh if someone dies and giggle permanently as loud as one isn’t able even to understand the female speaker over the Hebrew original. Whenever the name of the director shows up in the credits – a big pile of laughter – because “Shmuel” sounds like “schwul” – gay - in German. A huge joke for the kids with a lot of repetition effect. Lambda (a glbt school project in Berlin) – please take over!

Video: Premiere-Talk "THAT MAN: PETER BERLIN"

Less giggle later one in "MY SUMMER OF LOVE", which was shown at the Kidsfest
/14plus and is one of the sweetest love stories on the Teddy list. Drugs and sex aren’t really unimportant in it – therefore the monster kids had to stay outside. Legitimately this teenage love story got a lot of glory on the Festivals in Edinburgh, Toronto and London. Filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski and Emily Blunt (who plays the eccentric Tamsin in the movie) didn’t show up unfortunately but in their place came the working class heroine, Natalie Press, however without her bike. Anja Meier from the Kids Film

Video: Premiere-Talk Duncan Tucker Director "TRANSAMERICA"

Festival raves not only about the heroines of this movie but about so many “Wonderful, statuesque beauties, strong girls, great role models, I could just dream about when I was a girl!“ Into raving got also Christine Rüffert, from the Teddy Jury, who is known for founding the gay-lesbian film festival “Queerfilm!” in Bremen 12 years ago. And did so although she happens to be actually straight! So much of engagement for the good side has to get rewarded, seem to have told herself an old schoolmate of her and fell after 30 years in Christine’s arms at the cinema. Not all of the members of the jury get so spoiled, a few of them are sick already, but Christian Peters, the Teddy Doctor, tries to take care of them. He’s even got the right eye medicine for Doris Ng, who supposedly couldn’t cope with seeing all the Hong Kong movies, which Wieland Speck on the other hand recommends especially this year.

Poor Dieter Kosslick! First he has to deal with complaints that there aren’t enough V.I.P.s on the red carpet and then the rare celebrities get not even recognised. Kevin Spacey’s “Beyond the Sea” is one of the audience magnets in the Panorama. But because Kevin-I’m-not-gay is an Oscar Winner nobody else than the guys from the competition team are allowed to… take him… here or there... Or even not. When Mr. Spacey got off the plane with a beard and a hat (not a film wig!), nobody of the guys in charge actually recognised him. So Kevin and
 
 

Video: Interview Basil Tsiokos. Director NewFest, New York

Video: Interview Elena Manrique. Producer from Madrid/Spain

Video: Interview Jason Plourde. Programming Director of Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

Video: Interview Ligeia Smith

Heike Makatsch and Jürgen Vogel didn’t make it almost to their own premiere of “No Songs of Love”. Their limo broke down right on the snowy Potsdamer Platz. In her thin outfit Heike couldn’t fix the car and neither could her producer Henning Faber. Luckily Saint Margaret von Schiller who happened to just pass by in her own car rescued them.
I also met Marie Vermeiren, for 5 years the programmer of the “Pink Screens”, the alternative glbt film festival in Brussels. In 2000 she joined the Teddy Jury and is still enthusiastic to be a part of the Teddy family.
At night the “Verzaubert-Party” at the Roses Bar.

Photo Gallery: Verzaubert Party at Roses Bar

Basil Tsiokos, the director of the N.Y. glbt Festival is happy to be in Berlin again and enjoyed obviously the crowd. Spanish producer Elena Manrique from Madrid is glad that Pedro Almodovar played such an important role in the history of Panorama – and vice versa. She regrets that nowadays the importance of queer films in Spain has diminished. Jason Plourde, the program director of the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in Seattle and many other queer film people partied until the morning.

Today's Screenings