FEATUREFOCUS ■ TEDDY AWARDS ■ LARS VON TRIER
The Teddy awards 2010
bears, and posted them to inaugural winners Pedro Almodovar and Gus Van Sant as their prizes. Twenty-fi ve years later, the Teddy awards have come a long way from those no-frills ori- gins. Not only are they an established part of the Berlinale calendar and the most prestigious fes- tival award for lesbian, gay and transgender fi lm-makers, they have raised the profi le of gay- themed films around the globe and given an international boost to several careers, including those of Tilda Swinton, Francois Ozon, Lukas Moodysson and Todd Haynes. On top of that the Teddygala — held February 18 this year — has a well-deserved reputation for being the best bash at the festival. According to Speck, launching the Teddy
awards came hand in hand with his own experi- ences winning prizes at gay fi lm festivals for his 1985 feature debut Westler. He joined the pro- gramming team for what became the Berlinale’s Panorama section at a time when gay and les- bian fi lm-making was acquiring a new agitprop signifi cance in the wake of the 1980s Aids crisis, particularly in the US. It was a way to give validity to a burgeoning
movement eventually dubbed New Queer Cin- ema, with gay and lesbian film-makers, the
■ 28 Screen International in Berlin February 11, 2011
Teddy power T
he year the Teddy awards were born, co- founder Wieland Speck walked into a department store on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, purchased two small stuffed
a lot of energy’ Wieland Speck, Teddy co-founder
From their origins in a bookshop, the Teddy awards are celebrating their 25th anniversary as part of the Berlinale. Matt Mueller explores how they have become the most prestigious festival awards for gay, lesbian and transgender cinema
industry and activists from around the world convening annually in Berlin’s gay bookshop Prinz Eisenherz to watch and discuss films, including titles which had not made the Berli- nale cut. In the early years, every attendee voted on the Teddy, until Speck introduced a nine-member international jury made up pri- marily of programmers from gay and lesbian fi lm festivals. “When you have someone from Indonesia,
‘When you have jury members from Indonesia, from Korea, from the first gay- themed festival to ever take place in Warsaw, it brings
from Korea, from the fi rst [LGBT] festival to ever take place in Warsaw, it brings a lot of energy,” he notes. “Politically, it’s a very good thing.” Though it co-existed alongside the Berli-
nale, the Teddy — which can go to fi lms in any section of the festival, not just Panorama — was not offi cially recognised as a festival prize until 1992. “I always called it offi cial but it took Moritz de Hadeln [director of the Berlinale
TEDDY JURY 2011
Chairman Marcus Hu (US) Strand Releasing Beth Sa Freire (Braz) Sao Paolo Short Film Festival Istvan Szebesi (Hung) Magic Mirror, Sziget Festival Jason Barker (UK) London BFI Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Jin Park (S Kor) Queer Film Festival Seoul Victor Silakong (Thai) Bangkok World Film Festival Andrejs Visockis (Lat) LGB Festival Riga Sarah Neal (Aus) Brisbane Queer Film Festival Mara Fortes (Mex) Morelia Film Festival
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from 1980-2001] 10 years to come to the fi rst Teddy awards,” says Speck. “He was always supportive but in the background, out of view. At the 10th Teddy, I said, ‘Now you have to come’, and we pushed him through the crowd onto the stage at the Kreuzberger Club SO36. That was the start of really being part of the Berlinale.” It was only three years ago the festi- val began contributing to the annual budget of the Teddy awards; for most of its existence it has relied on donations from Berlin’s gay com- munity, merchandising and commercial spon- sorship to survive. In recent years, the Teddy awards’ growth
has reached into television, with Franco-Ger- man cultural channel ARTE broadcasting a 90-minute version of the show across Europe since 2006. More people watch the Teddy awards than the Golden Bears, according to
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