The stars of Berlin: BERLINALE – Teddy Award

TEDDY AWARD at the Berlinale

For the 20th time The Queer TEDDY film prize is an official part of the Berlin International Film Festival. It was first awarded in 1987 in the categories of Feature Film and Short Film. Now there are even Special-TEDDY's for a person or a company who have made important contributions to queer film.

The TEDDY Award ceremony, followed by a blow-out party, takes place the evening before the Golden Bears are awarded. It is the only gay-lesbian-transgender film prize at an A-Festival.At the Berlinale there are about 40 films with queer themes, which makes up about ten percent of all Festival presentations.

Traditionally the most TEDDY relevant films are shown in the Panorama section of the festival.Manfred Salzgeber and Wieland Speck founded the Teddy Awards in 1987. Wieland Speck is on the board of Directors of the Teddy Foundation. Margaret von Schiller (Panorama/Shortfilms) and many professionals and volunteers work to make the Teddy Awards happen. Our hats are off to them.

The TEDDY Awards are doted with 3,000 Euro and the TEDDY-Statue designed by cartoonist Ralf König. The money is raised by the TEDDY Foundation within the Berlin community and by sponsors, the Gala + Party are organized by private management.

Prize money usually helps to paying for film prints, subtitles and advertising. The future goal is to establish a promotional award of 25.000 EUR to help the release of the winning film or to set up a new production of the winning filmmaker.
Queer films are of today amongst the cheapest films in production value, due to the lack of financial risks producers are willing to take.
The TEDDY tries to compensate a little for that.

To celebrate the 20th edition of the Teddy a double DVD (TEDDY (TWENTY) was released with the Short Film Winners of the Teddy Award.My favorite one is PEPPERMILLS by Isabel Hegner (13th edition when I was on the jury). A reference for all cinema lovers.

1998 - Jury member for the 13thTEDDY AWARD at the 48th BERLINALE (Berlin International Film Festival)