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The 39th Teddy Awards, the Berlin International Film Festival’s prestigious LGBTQ honors, celebrated both emerging talents and seasoned pioneers in queer cinema.

The best feature film accolade went to Lesbian Space Princess, directed by Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs. This animated comedy follows Princess Saira on an “inter-gay-lactic” mission to rescue her ex-girlfriend from the clutches of the “Straight White Maliens.”

In the best documentary/essay film category, 82-year-old queer cinema pioneer Rosa von Praunheim took top honors for his autobiographical doc-fiction mash-up Satanische Sau (Satanic Sow). The film features von Praunheim as the titular “satanic sow,” portrayed by actor Armin Dallapiccola, in an exploration of the director’s wild journey through fame, faith, and family, and his confrontation with death.

The jury award was presented to Wenn du Angst hast nimmst du dein Herz in den Mund und lächelst (If You Are Afraid You Put Your Heart...

Timothée Chalamet and Robert Pattinson were among the latest high-profile names confirmed this afternoon as attendees for this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The pair were included this afternoon in an updated guest list shared by the festival.

Chalamet will attend for the German premiere of his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown while Pattinson will debut his Bong Joon-ho flick Micky 17. Both films play in the Berlinale Specials sidebar.

Other confirmed guests include Conclave filmmaker Edward Berger who will present Tilda Swinton her Honorary Golden Bear. Jessica Chastain will hit the German capital with Michel Franco’s Golden Bear Contender Dreams, and Jacob Elordi will make the trip to Berlin for the world premiere of his Justin Kurzel series The Narrow Road to the Deep South.

Other celebrity guests confirmed today by the festival include Naomi Ackie, Rose Byrne, Toni Collette, Denis Côté, Marion Cotillard, Lars Eidinger, Mala Emde,...

The Berlin International Film Festival has added a trio of last-minute additions to its sidebar sections ahead of the 75th-anniversary event.

Two Berlinale veterans, German directors Rosa von Praunheim and Gerd Kroske, will return to the festival with their latest works, while Chinese director Jing Yi will attend for the first time with her debut feature.

Von Praunheim’s Satanische Sau (The Satanic Sow) joins the Panorama Special lineup. It is described as a hybrid film, both farce and factual, and is pitched as the swan song for the 82-year-old LGBTQ+ pioneer, whose oeuvre consists of more than 150 works, including such features as City of Lost Souls (1983), The Einstein of Sex (1999), and the 2005 documentary Heroes and Gay Nazis.

Documentarian Kroske returns to the Berlinale for the fifth time with Stolz & Eigensinn (Pride & Attitude), a nonfiction feature exploring the lives of female industrial workers in former East Germany. Kroske is perhaps...

Prolific German director Rosa von Praunheim’s The Satanic Sow has joined the Berlinale’s Panorama section as the festival locks the sidebar as well as the Forum and Generation lineups.

The Berlinale described von Praunheim’s new work as “a mischievous, kinky, and yet tender hybrid film” which held a special place in his 150-title filmography “as both a swan song and a farce, dreamlike and factual at the same time.”

Von Praunheim has a long history at the Berlinale with the screening of his controversial film It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives at the 1971 edition regarded as a turning point for the West German gay liberation movement.

In other additions, Chinese director Jing Yi’s The Botanist has been added to the Generation Kplus Competition. Set in north-west China, it follows a boy, who in a world full of uncertainty and change,...

The Berlinale has rounded out its Panorama, Forum and Generation Kplus strands with the addition of one new title each.

German director Rosa von Praunheim’s The Satanic Sow completes the 2025 Panorama programme as a Panorama Special. His latest film is billed as a “mischievous, kinky, and yet tender hybrid film” and as a swan song to his 150-title oeuvre, which includes 2015 Panorama title Tough Love and 1990 Teddy Award winner Silence = Death.

The Forum programme has added the world premiere of Gerd Kroske’s Pride & Attitude, a documentary about former Gdr female industrial workers. Pride & Attitude is the German director...

With a title that translates as Neighbourhood of Ill Repute, and featuring a bisexual love triangle, the 1971 film wowed festivals – before disappearing without trace. Now it’s been rediscovered – by accident

Nobody used the phrase “having a moment” back in 1971. Had they done, it could have been applied without contradiction to developments in queer cinema. It was four years after the Sexual Offences Act 1967 had partially decriminalised sex between consenting men over 21 in England and Wales, and two years after the Stonewall uprising in New York City. Queer desire was everywhere: in Sunday Bloody Sunday, Death in Venice, Pink Narcissus, the trans classic Women in Revolt, the lesbian horror Daughters of Darkness, the gay porn landmark Boys in the Sand and Rosa von Praunheim’s droll and provocative It Is Not the Homosexual Who is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives. Fassbinder, who could cough out movies in his sleep,...

James Chance, a pioneer of New York’s No Wave scene, has died. He was 71 years old.

According to a GoFundMe started by his brother, Chance had been suffering from a “years-long debilitating illness,” and passed away on Tuesday surrounded by family.

Chance was born in Milwaukee in 1953, and began performing in bands while attending university in Michigan. In the mid ‘70s, he moved to New York, where he became involved in the city’s free jazz and punk scenes, forming Teenage Jesus and the Jerks with Lydia Lunch in 1976.

Chance only remained in Teenage Jesus for a short period, and in 1977 he founded the jazz-funk-punk group, The Contortions, where he began expanding his signature style. Explaining in later interviews that he wanted to mend the divide between various scenes in New York, he brought his impassioned, chaotic saxophone playing together with punk vocalizations, funky rhythms, and an all-around fervent sound.

Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling is struggling to come to terms with being 'Just Ken' in the newly released video for the official Barbie track, Just Ken. Released courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures, Just Ken teases more of that Ken-rgy that Gosling has been talking so much about, as the actor sings his heart out in this powerful Barbie ballad. Check out the video for Just Ken below.

“I just don’t know who I am without you,” Gosling sings while looking longingly at Margot Robbie’s Barbie. “But it’s Barbie and Ken. There is no just Ken,” he cries as he struggles to come to terms with his identity and his sense of individual self, perhaps suffering from a similar existential crisis as the one that lands Barbie exiled from the pink-and-wonderful Barbieland.

“It was so crazy,” says executive music producer Mark Ronson, who has written Just Ken...

It seems life in plastic may really be fantastic, if the first reactions to Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” are to be believed. After the world premiere in Los Angeles on Sunday night, fans are more than tickled pink by Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie’s performances.

Though we know it seemingly follows Barbie’s (Robbie) journey to self-discovery in the real world — which begins with her hilariously asking her Barbie friends if they “ever think about dying” in the trailer — the film’s core plot has largely been kept under wraps. We know that, in this world, Barbies do everything, while the men are just Kens.

But, according to those who have seen the movie (which Gerwig directed and co-wrote with Noah Baumbach), the “Little Women” filmmaker’s latest directorial outing is “a stunning achievement” that expertly addresses both the long-lasting love for the doll, and the criticisms of her over the years.

The company made its name with Nora Fingscheidt’s ‘System Crasher’ in 2019.

Falling Into Place, the directorial debut of German actress Aylin Tezel, Damian John Harper’s Fresh, with Dark star Louis Hoffman and Sophia Bosch’s mother-daughter drama Milk Teeth are all on the anticipated new production slate of Weydemann Bros, the German production outfit behind 2019 local box office hit System Crasher.

Tezel is known for her recent performances in Almanya: Welcome To Germany and 7500. Falling Into Place is a love story that she has also written and will star when it shoots in 2022.

Berlin-based distributor Port Au Prince which released System Crasher,...

Titles include ‘It Is Not The Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But The Society In Which He Lives’.

Berlin-based Missing Films has secured international sales rights and German distribution rights to a brace of seminal LGBTQ features by award-winning German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim.

They include the landmark drama-documentary It Is Not The Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But The Society In Which He Lives, which debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1971 and triggered the modern gay liberation movement in Germany. The second title is the romantic drama The Bed Sausage, which has never been distributed outside of Germany.

The...

The film is being sold by Germanys missingFILMS

German distributor and sales agent missingFILMs has sold all rights for cult German director Rosa von Praunheim’s latest feature Darkroom - Drops Of Death to Tla Entertainment for North America and to Optimale for French-speaking territories.

The thriller, which is based on the true criminal case of a serial killer from 2012, had its world premiere at the Mostra Fire in Barcelona in June and is screening in Germany for the first time at the Filmfest Hamburg in the Große Freiheit sidebar.

Veteran filmmaker von Praunheim was joined for the premiere in Hamburg by the lead actors,...

A visibly moved Dieter Kosslick received a standing ovation at the opening of the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday as he took to the stage to welcome international stars, filmmakers, and cinephiles for the final time as festival director.

The 69th Berlinale opened with a 1920s-style serenade dedicated to Kosslick by popular German singer Max Raabe and entertainer Anke Engelke, who also hosted the ceremony.

Monika Grütters, Germany’s culture and media commissioner, praised Kosslick for his 18 years at the head of one of the world’s largest film festivals.

Kosslick succeeded in sharpening the festival’s political profile, attracting international stars and filmmakers and ensuring the glamour factor, Grütters said.

“Our Berliner Bear in gold and silver, our beautiful trophy, is our most famous ambassador of film, but only one person can compete with him. That’s you, dear Dieter. And at the opening of your 18th and our 69th Berlinale,...

m-appeal has picked up Argentinian director Gabriel Lichtmann’s How To Win Enemies ahead of the Marché du Film in Cannes.

The Doménica Films production, which had its world premiere during the Bafici festival in Buenos Aires last month, centres on a young lawyer who believes he has finally found his ideal woman until she disappears without a trace – and with his life savings

The Berlin-based sales agent has also added three new Lgbt titles to its line-up.

The films are Israeli filmmaker Michal Vinik’s coming of age lesbian love story Barash, actor-director Gerald McCullouch’s Daddy, based on Dan Via’s acclaimed play of the same name, and Micaela Rueda’s Uio: Take Me For A Ride.

M-appeal will also be continuing sales in Cannes for such films as veteran German director Rosa von Praunheim’s latest feature Tough Love (Härte) which premiered at the Berlinale’s Panorama in February.

Last week, the...

Golden Bear Winner – “Taxi" by Jafar Panahi. This is funny, subtly political and a pleasure to watch. Panahi’s niece steals the show but other passengers in Panahi’s taxi are also engaging and mysterious as they reveal ever so little, which is still a lot, of their lives during their ride. The job of driving a taxi, a job he took to stay attached within society even though he is not allowed to make movies, gives Panahi a perfect setting for being filmed and for meeting people who represent Iran today. How fitting it was that on my ride home from the airport after Berlin, my Iranian cabdriver knew all the films of Panahi. We had a talk worthy of “Taxi." Isa: Celluloid Dreams. Kino Lorber has U.S. Rights, Memento who distributed the Iranian Golden Bear and Academy Award winner “A Separation” for France has picked up French rights; Filmladen picked up Austria, Imovision has Brazil, Film Europe Med has Czech Republic; Golden Scene has Hong Kong.

Jury Grand Prix (Silver Bear) – “The Club" by Pablo Larraín. Isa: Funny Balloons. U.S. still available!! Network Releasing picked up U.K. and Wild Bunch picked up France before its screening in Berlin. It has sold to Imovision for Brazil, Angel for Denmark and Alambique for Portugal.

Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) – “ Ixcanul Volcano” by Jayro Bustamante, perhaps Guatamala’s only Silver Bear winning film, this critically acclaimed coproduction with France’s Tu Va Voir showed only once before as a Work in Progress; no advance screeners were sent out by its Isa Film Factory who is now negotiating U.S. It was acquired by Arp days before Berlin. After its screening it was acquired by Andrea Occhipinti’s Lucky Red for Italy and Japan’s Gaga Communications. Cineart bought Benelux: Vision Sudest has rights to Switzerland, Vendetta acquired Australia/ New Zealand, Spentzos acquired Greece, Mediavision Turkey, Dexin former-Yugoslavia and Moving Turtle the Middle East.

Silver Bear for Best Director

Radu Jude for “Aferim!” Isa: Beta. All rights still available! Małgorzata Szumowska for “Body” A female directed story of healing in Poland today told as intertwined stories of a criminal prosecutor, his anorexic daughter and her therapist who claims she can communicate with the dead loved ones. Isa: Memento. All rights still available! Silver Bear for Best Actress - Charlotte Rampling for “45 Years”. Isa: The Match Factory. U.S. Sundance Selects, Canada--Skeye, Germany--The Match Factory, Benelux -Abc - Cinemien, U.K. -Curzon Film Wor and Artificial Eye.

Silver Bear for Best Actor – Tom Courtenay for “ 45 Years”

Silver Bear for Best Script – Patricio Guzmán for “The Pearl Button”Isa: Pyramide sold to trigon for Switzerland. U.S. still available! Continuing Patricio Guzmán’s theme of remembrance, this documentary ties together Chile’s natives population’s disappearance with the disappearance of family, friends and strangers during the Pinochet dictatorship in a surprising metaphor of water and The Button.

Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution for Cinematography

Sturla Brandth Grøvlen for “ Victoria”. All shot in one take! Isa: The Match Factory. U.S.: Adopt Films, Germany – Senator.

Sergey Mikhalchuk and Evgeniy Privin for “ Under Electric Clouds” Isa: Films Boutique. U.S. available! Best First Feature Award – “600 Miles” by Gabriel Ripstein.Isa: Ndm. U.S. still available! Sold to Brazil--Tucumán Distrib, Serbia--Mcf Megacom Fil, Thailand-- Coral Culture C

Panorama Audience Award[20]

1st Place: “ The Second Mother ” by Anna Muylaert Isa: The Match Factory. U.S. Oscilloscope . Soda picked up U.K. and Canada. It had its world premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where stars Regina Case and Camila Mardila won the Special Jury Award for Acting. Read our review Here

2nd Place: “Stories of Our Lives” by Jim Chuchu. A collection of five vignettes about Kenya's Lgbt community. Bannes in Kenya. All rights available! 3rd Place: “Tough Love” by Rosa von Praunheim. Isa: M-appeal. U.S. available. France: Arte, Germany: Missing films. Teddy Award : “Nasty Baby “ bySebastián Silva. Isa: Funny Balloons. North American rights acquired by The Orchard.

Fipresci Prize [22]

Competiton: “Taxi” by Jafar Panahi Panorama: A Minor Leap Down by Hamed Rajabi For other titles from the Berlinale still available, see Indiewire’s

Memo to Distributors: Buy these 2015 Berlin International Film Festival movies...

UK documentary Tell Spring Not To Come This Year, filmed on the frontline in Afghanistan, also wins.

Brazilian drama The Second Mother (Que Horas Ela Volta?) has picked up the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival’s 17th Panorama Audience Awards.

Anna Muylaert’s film explores barriers of class when the estranged daughter of a live-in housekeeper suddenly appears, throwing the home into disarray.

UK documentary Tell Spring Not To Come This Year, directed by Saeed Taji Farouky, Michael McEvoy, won the documentary audience award.

The directors accompanied an Afghan National Army company during a year of frontline duty in Helmand.

During the Berlinale, filmgoers were asked to rate the titles shown in the Panorama section. A total of 31,200 votes were cast and counted.

This year the Panorama presented 52 feature-length films from 38 countries, of which 18 screened in the Panorama Dokumente series.

Winners of the Panorama Audience Award - Fiction Film 2015

Que Horas Ela Volta? (The Second...

Citizenfour, The Cut and Quatsch to screen at Berlinale; Critics’ Week Berlin to be launched

The German Film Critics Association (Vdfk) has joined forces with the Heinrich Böll Foundation to launch a Critics’ Week Berlin as “a hub for everyone who connects intellectual reflection with the sensual pleasure of watching films”.

Inspired by the examples of Cannes, Venice and Locarno, the first edition’s selection of 10 features is based on two concepts: “stirring, daring, surprising cinema and a potential for cultural and critical discussion.”

The initiative is not part of the Berlinale, although members of the Vdfk board had spoken with festival director Dieter Kosslick about the idea of a critics’ week in the past.

Two titles already confirmed are the world premiere of Bernard Émond’s Le Journal d’un vieil homme (The Diary of an Old Man), adapted from the Chekhov novella A Dreary Story, and Johnnie To’s romantic comedy Don’t Go Breaking...

Asia was the big winner at the 64th Berlin Film Festival, taking home four Bears, including the Golden Bear for Best Film and Silver Bear for Best Actor (Liao Fan) for Diao Yinan’s Black Coal, Thin Ice (Bai Ri Yan Huo).Click here for full list of winners

Another of the three Chinese titles, Blind Massage, picked up the Silver Bear for Outstanding Achievement, which again went to a cinematographer, Zeng Jian. Last year had seen DoP Aziz Zhambakiyev receive the prize for his camerawork on Harmony Lessons.

At the ceremony on Saturday night, the Silver Bear for Best Actress was presented to Haru Kuroki for her performance in The Little House by veteran Japanese director Yoji Yamada.

There were a further six prizes or special mentions for films from Asia in the decisions of the Generation and independent juries (Fipresci and Netpac).

Black Coal, Thin Ice is the fourth Chinese film to win the Golden...

Selection opens with a documentary about what motivates Somali pirates and includes the European premiere of 20,000 Days on Earth, starring Nick Cave, and 10 world premieres.Scroll down for full list

The Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 6-16) has unveiled the 16 films that will make up the documentary section of its Panorama strand.

This year’s Panorama Dokumente comprises 16 films, including ten world premieres, and will open on Feb 7 with the world premiere of Dutch co-production The Last Hijack by Tommy Pallotta and Femke Wolting. The film depicts what motivates piracy in Somalia.

The topic of Africa, which is also reflected in the Ethiopian fictional feature Difret, is also central to Swedish filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson in Concerning Violence. This commentary on Africa’s decolonisation, cites Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” - and Us singer Lauryn Hill lends these texts her voice.

Olsson previously presented The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 about the Afro-American civil rights...

The fourth annual London Underground Film Festival is the first edition of the fest to be run by new caretakers Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais, two accomplished filmmakers. The festival will run November 14-17 at the legendary avant-garde media center, the Horse Hospital.

Fawcett and Pais have programmed a bold fest, which begins on the 14th with the London-based documentary Grasp the Nettle by Dean Puckett. The film follows the challenges faced by a group of land rights activists fighting for a piece of disused land in West London. Also on opening night is Randy Moore’s Escape From Tomorrow, which was filmed surreptitiously at Disneyland; and Táu by Daniel Castro Zimbrón.

Other films screening at the fest include the award winning doc A Body Without Organs, directed by Steven Graves; Alex Munt’s Warhol homage Poor Little Rich Girls (After Warhol); Irene Lusztig’s history of childbirth, The Motherhood...

It's a Monday night with occasional downpours, but the steamy weather and the chance to view Andy Warhol's rarely screened tribute to the underground legend, poet, and actor Taylor Meade's posterior has the crowd, composed mainly of artsy gayboys, both young and old, lining up en masse in the lobby of the Museum of Modern Art.

 A murmur of true excitement, amidst the chatter about organic art exhibits and mild flirtations, greets the ear as the flip-floppers are ushered into the Sculpture Garden. Instantly, stylized composure is disposed of as there's a mad rush for seats with an unobstructed view. Those who lose out on the "Musical Chairs Grab" wind up sitting on steps, which actually proffer a better sight line.

This highly social event, by the way, was organized into being by several bright-eyed cultural-mavens-in-the-making. Sophie Cavoulacos, the Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Film (Moma), has...

In 1979, Adrienne Mancia together with Larry Kardish curated the first program of Kino!, new German cinema at New York's Museum of Modern Art. For 34 consecutive years, Larry Kardish, distinguished Senior Film Curator at MoMA, presented work by celebrated international filmmakers including Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Rosa von Praunheim, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Wolf Gremm, Wolfgang Becker, Doris Dörrie, Andreas Dresen, to Christian Petzold, and many others to enthusiastic audiences.

For 2013, Kino! continues, now organised by Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, MoMA, with Nicole Kaufmann, Project Co-ordinator, German Films Service + Marketing (Munich) and its New York representative, Oliver Mahrdt (read our interviews with them, here).

Here is the 35th edition lineup of reinvention with filmmakers Stephan Lacant, Nico Sommer, Laura Mahlberg, Andreas Bolm, and Jan Ole Gerstner in attendance to present their work and participate in Q&As.

Free...

Taylor Mead, the love child of Bette Davis and Peter Lorre, is one of the truly great comic geniuses of underground films, theater, poetry, cabaret, and cable TV of the Sixties and beyond. He was and is still quite hilarious, even if just stumbling down an East Village Street by himself, his traipse being a sort of Danse Macabre as envisioned by Pee Wee Herman.

An Andy Warhol Superstar, possibly best known for his hysterical “gunslinger” in Lonesome Cowboys, Mead’s brilliance never shined brighter than when he took on the title role in Michael McClure’s outrageous off-off-Broadway play, Spider Rabbit, in which he essayed a bunny who adored eating human brains.

But Taylor didn’t need a lead role to be unforgettable. In Rosa von Praunheim’s documentary Tally Brown New York, the constantly morphing star stole his scenes from Ms. Brown, who was no slouch herself when it came to commanding attention.

★★☆☆☆ Rosa von Praunheim's documentary King of Comics (König des Comics, 2012) explores the life and work of Ralf König, one of Germany's most celebrated comic book writers and artists - best known for his work The Most Desired Man, which was adapted into a film in 1995. Fearless of almost any subject matter, König's uncompromising work deals with urban living, gay stereotypes, the impact of religion on the gay community and Islamic extremism.

Read more »...

"How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster?, an admiring documentary about the British architect Norman Foster, by Norberto López Amado and Carlos Carcas, gives the viewer quite a lot to marvel at, which is, after all, the root meaning of the word 'admire,'" begins Ao Scott in the New York Times. "Accompanied by Joan Valent's pulsing, soaring score, the camera swoops over some of Mr Foster's largest and best-known structures and floats through the bright and airy interiors of his skyscrapers. Even before you hear Paul Goldberger (a former architecture critic for The New York Times, currently at The New Yorker) describe Mr Foster as 'the Mozart of Modernism,' you can appreciate the grace and harmony of his compositions in glass, steel and light."

For Benjamin Sutton, writing in the L, "what's most remarkable about this documentary," currently at the IFC Center through Tuesday, "is how...

Another day, another trio of announcements from the Berlin International Film Festival (February 9 through 19). First off, this year's Berlinale Camera has been presented to Haro Senft, "one of the pioneers of New German Cinema as well as a tireless advocate of German children films... He was the initiator of Doc 59, a group based in Munich at the end of the 1950s; many of its members went on to sign the Oberhausen Manifesto in 1962." His 1961 documentary short Kahl was nominated for an Oscar and Bruno Ganz gave his first performance in a major role in Senft's first narrative feature, Der sanfte Lauf (1967).

"In 1971 he resigned from all his positions related to film policy and devoted himself unlike anyone else to developing a culture of children's films. With his films Ein Tag mit dem Wind (1978) and Jacob hinter der blauen Tür (1987) he set the standard for the genre." Because Senft can no longer travel,...

Transsexual characters promote positive discussion, regardless of who plays them. But trans actors need more opportunities

"He's playing a transsexual," said Ben Stephenson, controller of drama commissioning, as the BBC announced that Sean Bean would star as Simon, an English teacher with an "alter ego" named Tracie in legal drama Accused. "[It's] a brilliant story," Stephenson told the Broadcasting Press Guild, "untold, I think, on mainstream television." Bean's appearance is the latest to raise an issue constantly debated within certain circles: should trans roles on screen be played by trans people?

Critiquing stereotypical portrayals in Whipping Girl, Julia Serano stated that "in a world where transsexual and intersex works of art … are not considered mainstream enough to be nominated for Emmys and Pulitzers, the facade presented in [HBO drama] Normal … profoundly shapes audience opinions about transsexual and intersex people". The problem, argued Serano, was that Normal appropriated gender-variant experiences without including transgender perspectives,...

Though it slipped past us somehow the 2011 Berlin Film Festival released the first block of titles from their Panorama section yesterday and there are some very familiar names in there, among them Ryoo Seung-Wan's The Unjust, Jorge Padilha's Elite Squad 2, Angelique Bosio's The Advocate For Fagdom and Hugo Olsson's The Black Power Mixtape - all of which have received coverage here in the pages of Twitch. You want the complete list? Here it is:

Panorama Main Programme + Panorama Special Bu-dang-geo-rae (The Unjust) by Seung-wan Ryoo, Republic of Koreawith Jung-min Hwang, Seung-bum Ryoo, Hae-jin Yoo Chang-Pi-Hae (Ashamed) by Soo-hyun Kim, Republic of Koreawith Hyo-jin Kim, Kkobbi Kim Dance Town by Kyu-hwan Jeon, Republic of Koreawith Mir-an Ra, Seong-tae Oh The Devil's Double by Lee Tamahori, Belgiumwith Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier Dirty Girl by Abe Sylvia, USAwith Juno Temple, Milla Jovovich, William H. Macy, Dwight Yoakam, Mary Steenburgen, Jeremy Dozier...

Apart from the classic auteurs in the Special Presentations section, the 39th Festival du nouveau cinéma will be filled to the gills in new works from across the globe. I view the extremely popular film festival as sort of a B-side for film festival circuit items that generally find a spot in a major film fest such as Cannes and afterwards would normally fall through the cracks. Think the Nyff's much wilder, Canadian cousin. Over 295 films - this includes shorts, fiction and documentary, animation, retrospectives, tributes, professional panels, outdoor interactive installations, the festival which takes place between the 13th to the 24th of October, furiously promotes not only world talent, but local French Canadian filmmakers. Among the notable titles, we have Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quattro volte, Olivier Assayas' Carlos and Alex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus and Wang Bing will be in town for a Master Class for Venice-winning The Ditch.

Flamboyant cult German director, belatedly appreciated

After a long, fallow period in German cinema, there emerged, in the late 1960s, a new wave of directors, including Werner Schroeter, who has died of cancer, aged 65. What separated Schroeter from most of his contemporaries, such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog, was his almost complete rejection of realism, social and political, and his espousal of high camp.

Schroeter lived by Oscar Wilde's dictum: "Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess." His mixture of flamboyant, gender-bending minimalism and stylised melodrama, inspired by 19th-century Italian bel canto opera and the music of German romanticism, often juxtaposed with popular song, blurred the distinction between art and kitsch. His eschewal of conventional narrative made him a marginal figure, but towards the end of his life, with several retropectives at festivals and cinematheques, he gained a wider audience of cinephiles. He kept a faithful,...

Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali, Javier Beltrán as Federico Garcia Lorca in Paul Morrison’s Little Ashes (top); Eytan Fox’s Mary Lou (middle); Frank Ripploh’s raunchy gay classic Taxi Zum Klo (bottom) Torino Lgbt Film Festival 2010: Leo’S Room, Boy In A Bathtub, Rosa von Praunheim Other Torino screenings on Wednesday, April 21, include Paul Morrison’s Little Ashes, starring Twilight idol Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali (!) and Javier Beltrán as Federico Garcia Lorca. Set in 1920s Spain, Dali is portrayed as a closet case in love with Lorca, who ended up killed by Franco sympathizers during the Spanish Civil War. Future filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Matthew McNulty) is depicted as an anti-gay grouch. Producer Carlo Dusi will be present at [...]...

Maria Beatty’s Boy in a Bathtub (top); Enrique Buchichio’s Leo’s Room (middle); João Gabriel Vasconcellos, Rafael Cardoso in Aluisio Abranches‘ From Beginning to End (bottom) Maria Beatty will be honored with a screening of Boy in a Bathtub at the Torino Glbt Film Festival – Da Sodoma a Hollywood (Turin’s Glbt Film Festival – From Sodom to Hollywood) on Wednesday, April 21. Set in 1920s Paris, Boy in a Bathtub tells the story of a courtesan who seduces a very young man — only to turn him into an androgynous "love slave," with whom his/her mistress can do as she pleases. Also at Torino, the international premiere of Rosa von Praunheim’s New York Memories, in which the filmmaker, accompanied by his new partner, [...]...

German filmmaker Werner Schroeter has died after undergoing surgery for cancer.

The director lost his battle with the disease on Monday at a hospital in Kassel, Germany. He was 65.

Schroeter began his film career in the 1960s and became known for his work with gay moviemaker Rosa von Praunheim.

He used his projects to challenge common perceptions of outsiders, such as homosexuals and immigrants, and established himself as a leading voice in the German film industry in the 1970s.

He was most recently honoured for his work at the Berlin Film Festival, where he was awarded an honorary Teddy Award for cinema with gay themes.

This year's Guadalajara Film Festival (Ficg - Festival International de Cine Guadalajara) has so many events, sections and sidebars that one barely knows where to begin. Established in 1986 it now has an attendence of about 66,000 with industry attendence at about 3,000 all of whom are interested in interacting with one another and with filmmakers in an extremely friendly upbeat environment. Its festival has a competition for Mexican and Iberoamerican fiction, docs and shorts, French features with a focus on Agnes Varda, animation, alternative, childrens, and of course gala sections. It has a film market, numerous panels and has incorporated several key international initiatives.

About my ever active Women Directors' Tally: Of 160 new features at the festival, 27 are by women, equalling 16%. Those women are the ones who are currently playing the most important festivals: Paz Fabrega, Natalia Smirnoff, Florence Jaugey, Maria Novaro, Renate Costa, Urszula Antoniak, Elizabeth Chi Vasarhelyi, the ones not...

It's a wrap! The Martin Gropius Bau is empty and the final pickups follow. This is a work in progress and readers are invited and welcome to contribute. Presales have returned in reaction to the reduced number of finished films on offer over the past two markets. Presales applies across the board from Us to French and even Italian films. English language films are increasingly coming out of the major non English language territories but local product is impacting sales on Us films internationally. Business was quickly wrapped up but it was done with a healthy number of buys reported. Lower prices have become accepted but the market must have product as this event proved.

Adriana Chiesa has licensed Federico Moccia’s teen trilogy to Savor to Spain. The first title, Sorry If I Love You (Scusa Ma Ti Chiamo Amore) grossed $27m when released by Medusa on 600 prints in Italy.

Berlin -- The Berlin film festival's Panorama sidebar is coming back loud and proud this year with a lineup packed with films examining gender identity and the gay movement.

The 2010 Panorama opens Feb. 11 with the Russian film "Jolly Fellows," director Felix Mikhailov's look at the drag queen subculture of a Moscow club.

This year's lineup also features Cheryl Dunye's thriller "The Owls," in which aging lesbians try to get away with murder; and Jake Yuzna's "Open," a series of intertwined love stories featuring gay and trans-gendered partners.

Several of Panorama's documentary selections explores related themes -- such as Crayton Robery's "Making The Boys" about Matt Crowley's ground breaking gay play "The Boys in the Band;" "Cuchillo de Palo," Renate Costa's expose of persecution of homosexuals during the Paraguayan dictatorship and the German doc "Rock Hudson – Dark and Handsome Stranger" from directors Andrew Davies and Andre Schaefer.

James Cameron in Los Angeles with 70Mm prints of "Aliens" and "The Abyss"?!?! The Dardenne brothers in New York for a career retrospective?!?! The instant cult classic "The Room" with Tommy Wiseau live in Austin?!?! Be still my heart. There's something for all tastes this summer on the West Coast, the East Coast and as you'll notice, the Third Coast on our calendar of the must-see events on the repertory theater circuit in May, June and July. And don't miss our look at the indie films that are hitting theaters or headed to online, VOD or DVD premiere this summer.

Anthology Film Archives

With the New York Polish Film Festival (May 6-10) and first-runs of the docs "Ice People" (May 1-7) and "Audience of One" (May 8-14) and Ken Jacobs' reinvention of his 1969 work "Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son" with the 3D "Anaglyph Tom" (May 15-21) taking up the Anthology's screens,...

COLOGNE, Germany -- Sex, politics and rock 'n' roll are the themes running through this year's Panorama, the Berlin International Film Festival's main sidebar.

Parvez Sharma's A Jihad For Love, which will open Panorama's documentary section, Dokumente, looks at the conflict between sexuality and religion by examining the lives of devout Muslims who are homosexual. The film was produced by Sandi Dubowski, who looked at similar issues among gay orthodox Jews in Trembling Before G-d. That film debuted in Panorama in 2001 and won Berlin's Teddy award for the best film with a homosexual theme.

Sexual politics are at the core of several Dokumente entries including Dondu Kilic's The Other Istanbul, Suddenly, Last Winter from Italian directors Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi, Jochen Hick's East/West and "Dead Gay Men and Living Lesbians" by Berlin's own Rosa von Praunheim.

Middle East politics is the focus of Eran Riklis' Lemon Tree, the drama that opens the Panorama Special section. The film looks at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of a Palestinian woman who inherits a lemon grove bordering on Israeli territory.

Other high-profile Panorama Special screenings include Brad Anderson's Transsiberian, featuring Woody Harrelson, Thomas Kretschmann and Ben Kingsley, and the world premiere of Madonna's directorial debut, Filth & Wisdom starring Richard E. Grant.

Madonna won't be the only pop star featured on this year's Panorama. Legendary punk princess Patti Smith will give a concert in the German capital to support the Panorama debut of Steven Sebring's documentary Patti Smith: Dream of Life. Ceri Levy's Bananaz follows Britpop regulars Damon Alban and Jamie Hewlett, creators of the virtual band Gorillaz.

BERLIN -- The subject is out of focus in "Here's Looking at You, Boy," a documentary about the emergence of gay cinema. Director Andre Schafer mixes talking heads with clips from highly selective movies of the 1970s onward without a clear agenda or point of view. Consequently, the less-than-incisive doc will be limited to gay film festivals and the DVD market.

Schafer admits he took pains to avoid territory already covered in the 1995 classic "The Celluloid Closet" and last year's "Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema." So the movie's direction appears to have been dictated by what film rights he could secure and what individuals would agree to appear on camera. Even then, some interviews get off the track with reminiscences about personal experiences as opposed to how such experienced are conveyed in movies.

Also there is a problem of definition. Is this a movie about gay directors or about gay subject matter in movies? The question really arises when he tackles Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a leader of the German new wave in the '70s. Talking about Fassbinder's sexuality in relationship to his cinematic achievements is as edifying as discussing Walt Whitman's sexuality in regards to his poetry. In both instances, this is decidedly beside the point.

The film skewers heavily toward northern European and U.S. movies. Passing mention of developing countries and a single film clip from India take care of the rest of the world. Little is made of lesbian films and there is a notable absence of people of color.

The clips themselves are often of poor quality. Then again, the interviews shot in Digi Beta look pretty washed out too.

The talking heads assembled are certainly an articulate lot. These include German pioneer Rosa Von Praunheim, Joseph Lovett, Stephen Frears (talking about "My Beautiful Laundrette"), Constantine Giannaris, Guinevere Turner, Gus Van Sant and Tilda Swinton (discussing her muse, Derek Jarman).

The movie has a few good laughs. Swinton recalls how Jarman, who was HIV-positive, raised money for years by insisting each film project would be "Derek Jarman's last film." And John Waters puzzles over the characters' dilemma in "Brokeback Mountain". "They can only get together twice a year for great sex," he muses. "Sounds perfect to me".

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU, BOY

Floriamfilm

Credits:

Writer/director: Andre Schafer

Producers: Marianne Schafer, Ingmar Trost

Director of photography: Bernd Meiners

Music: Ritchie Staringer

Editor: Martin Schomers

Running time -- 90 minutes

No MPAA rating...

MUNICH -- Berlin International Film Festival officials said Wednesday that at this year's festival, an honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement will go to Spanish actor Fernando Fernan Gomez and Berlinale Cameras will go to Japan's oldest film studio, Shochiku, and Helene Schwarz, former secretary of the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin. The Berlinale Special will screen Gomez's latest film, Something to Remember Me By, directed by Patricia Ferreira; Shochiku's 1954 classic Twenty-four Eyes; and Rosa von Praunheim's recent documentary Who Is Helene Schwarz? The Berlinale Special also will honor this year's jury president, Roland Emmerich, with a screening of his blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, organizers said. And as tribute to cinematographer Carlo Di Palma, who died in July, the festival will screen Michelangelo Antonioni's The Red Desert.