Congratulations to Ira Sachs whose Keep the Lights On won Best Feature at the 26th Teddy Awards celebrating queer film at the Berlinale. Over ten years, a New York gay couple's relationship is threatened by competing addictions.
Zuschauerpreis der Siegessaeule: The bigger winner might be The Parade [above]. From Serbia, the turbulent farce follows homophobic mafia hitmen forced to defend the flaming queers at a fractious gay pride parade, with additional comedy/conflict among Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, Kosovo-Albanians and Croatian war vets. The cliche-riddled movie equally lampoons nellie fags and moronic machismo in the name of ultimately affirming gay acceptance. Amazingly, it became a monster box office smash success across the Balkans, becoming the #1 movie of 2011 with double the ticket sales of the number two movie, The Smurfs. The optimistic, solipsistic director expects this year's gay pride parade to be the region's first ever without anti-gay violence, thanks to his movie.
Best Documentary: Call Me Kuchu, a film by Katherine Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worral, about Uganda's first openly gay activist, David Kato, who was murdered. More here.
Best Short: Loxoro. A mother in Peru searches for her teenaged daughter and her best friend, both transsexuals.
Special Jury Prize: Jaures
Special Teddy I & II: Ulrike Ottinger, Mario Montez
As for the main jury prizes at the Berlinale, the Golden Bear went to Caesar Must Die by 80 and 82 year-old brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. (Last year's Golden Bear winner, which also swept the acting awards, was the Iranian drama A Separation. It has an impossible 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and truly is as good as everyone says. See it before it wins on Sunday.)
Comments