Artwork by Rinaldo Hopf
Der Queere Filmpreis der Berlinale
EVENING PROGRAMME 13 February 2015 KOMISCHE OPER BERLIN
www.teddyaward.tv
The 29th TEDDY AWARD is produced for stage and TV by maxwell.smart in cooperation with the TEDDY Foundation and the Komische Oper Berlin kindly supported by the Berlin International Film Festival/KBB
producers Elser Maxwell & Thomas Malz
TV production CINE PLUS for ZDF/ARTE
assistants to the producers Lisa Kirchner & Eva-Maria Krusch
editors in chief Olaf Grunert Susanne Biermann
assistant to mr. maxwell Florian Straub co-producer Klaus Mabel Aschenneller
TEDDY statue designed by Ralf König realization Schwermetall Schmuckdesign
production manager on location Anja Lindner, Hasan Karaben
design & layout evening programme Cabine.co.uk, Olivier Husson
technical director on location Dietmar Wolf
press relations Marie Gutbub
director Götz Filenius
web editor Philipp Schmidt
live editing Jule Geissler
TEDDY jury coordinators Michael Stütz Marco Urizzi von Plach
light design Wolfgang Rehausen, Jörn Scholz host Jochen Schropp author Sven Graf- Schrader TEDDY 2015 ART WORK Rinaldo Hopf animations Andreas Schöps TEDDY music composed by Jan Tilman Schade editing Ascanius Böttger, Lena Hatebur make up / hair Andreas Bernhardt, Arielle Troß Pascale Jean-Louis
special thanks to the director of the Berlin International Film Festival Dieter Kosslick and the curator of the Panorama Wieland Speck and his team Paz Lázaro, Bartholomew Sammut Gerrit Woltemath, Gwenael Rattke Claudia Rische, Christian Modersbach Klaus Purkart, André Stever, André Jenchen Mara Klein, Alexander Lehnert, Ela Gürmen Felix Canditt, Kate Fasano, Jean Mikhail love and kisses to the intendant of the Komische Oper Berlin Barrie Kosky and his team Susanne Moser, Rainer Simon, Werner Sauer Diego Leetz, Sebastian Lipski, Jochen Fischer André Kraft, Jens Buss and a hearty embrace to Harald Christ
PROGRAMME 9pm
TEDDY AWARD CEREMONY hosted by Jochen Schropp
Best Short Film Best Documentary/Essay Film Best Feature Film TEDDY Jury Award David Kato Vision & Voice Award Special TEDDY AWARD to UDO KIER with INGRID CAVEN KATHARINE MEHRLING AGNES ZWIERKO and the Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin conducted by Peter Christian Feigel POP:SCH FELIX & FLOW 11pm
TEDDY AFTER SHOW Chill & Dance Lounge with “L’ensemble transes continentales” und “Das blaue Wunder” feat. Magnus und Norbert
TEDDY Gala ARTISTS Host: JOCHEN SCHROPP Jochen Schropp is the host of numerous German TV-Shows. In 2011, he was awarded the Bavarian TV Prize. In 2010, 2011 and 2014, he was nominated for the German TV Prize in the category Best Entertainer. He is also a successful actor. The series Sternenfänger, marked his breakthrough role.Among many other appearances on television, he played the pathologist in the crime series Polizeiruf 110. For his role in Zwei Engel für Amor,he was nominated for the Grimme Prize. Jochen Schropp hosts many charity-events like the Kölner Aids-Gala and the Rosenball in Vienna. He is the host of the TEDDY AWARD Gala since 2012.
INGRID CAVEN Ingrid Caven is a chanson icon, “a comet passing once in a hundred years...” as the New York Times put it. Before starting her singing career in the late seventies, she had already achieved star status in European film. She appeared in more than 40 Rainer Werner Fassbinder productions and it was more than just lifelong friendship that tied her to Fassbinder, who would have turned 70 this year. The two were family by choice: They were married. In a tribute to Fassbinder, Caven will perform some of her most beautiful songs, those whose lyrics are tailor-made for her by the iconic director. Caven's long-time pianist, the extraordinary Jay Gottlieb will accompany.
POP:SCH Whether it’s a hair fetish, the romance between two police officers or the general obsession with beauty, POP:SCH are singing about it. The foursome from Vienna produces Electro-Pop with queer-feminist contents. They mix electronic music of the 80s with hymnic sing-along-pop and intelligent lyrics. Their music is catchy without being simple, their lyrics aggressive without being offensive. POP:SCH describe themselves as a mixture of Kim Wilde and Peaches. Their first album TOP OF THE POP:SCH came out in 2011. Their new single shut up haters is an anthem against homophobia, directed to all the “small-minded hypocrites” out there.
Straight from the menagerie of the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris, the cycleartists Felix and Flow hit the stage at the Komische Oper Berlin with fine cycling artistry of the superior sort, featuring distinctive elements unparalleled in the international Varieté scene. This unique act was forged in collaboration with the BASE Berlin talent works, which has been responsible for a number of artistic highlights seen onstage at the TEDDY AWARDS in recent years.
© Felix & Florian
FELIX and FLOW
TEDDY Gala ARTISTS AGNES ZWIERKO The mezzo-soprano Agnes Zwierko was born in Warsaw and initially studied computer engineering and electronics before she dedicated herself to opera singing at the musical academy Fryderyk Chopin. She sang in all the big opera houses of Poland as well as in international houses such as the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, La Scala in Milan or the Royal Opera House in London. The repertoire of Agnes Zwierko is big and versatile, the Amneris in Aida, Mrs. Quickly in Falstaff, and the Eboli in Don Carlo are just a small selection of her roles. This season Agnes Zwierko is a guest soloist at the Komische Oper Berlin, where she plays the Tangolita in the iconic operetta Ball im Savoy.
KATHARINE MEHRLING Whether it's Evita Peron, Edith Piaf or Fanny Brice, Katharine Mehrling is made for the part. This musical star debuted in London's West End in a production of Hair and played Sally Bowles in Cabaret 250 times at Berlin's “Bar jeder Vernunft”. She played the leads in Some Like It Hot, Die Dreigroschenoper and Les Miserables. Katharine Mehrling has received numerous accolades for her outstanding voice and moving acting. As part of the ensemble of the Komische Oper Berlin, she is currently playing and singing the role of Daisy Darlington in Barrie Kosky's revival of the original Weimar-era Berlin hit production Ball im Savoy. ©Jim Rakete
ORCHESTER DER KOMISCHEN OPER BERLIN The soloists will be accompanied by the Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin. In a sequence from Barrie Kosky's mise-en-scène of Jacques Offenbach's La belle Hélène (The Beautiful Helen), ballet dancers of the Komische Oper and the orchestra together will also demonstrate what overwhelming star power is gathered in the Komische Oper's ensemble, aside from great voices. Peter Christian Feigel conducts, Otto Pichler choreographed. © Kai Uwe Schulte Bunert
The barrel organs of the passionate organ grinder Werner Wittpoth hold up to 160 pipes and 48 pitches. With his ambitious and varied repertoire Wittpoth can be found since more than 30 years defying the weather between the domes of Cologne and Aachen. Occasionally the member of the thalidomide victim network also plays at the Berliner Ensemble, the Ballad of Mack the Knife or Brecht’s Canon Song, accompanied by Nina Hagen. Tonight Werner Wittpoth welcomes the guests of the TEDDY AWARD at the Komische Oper Berlin. The TEDDY AFTER SHOW LOUNGE @ Komische Oper showcases the newly founded L'ensemble transes continentales, who will take us through an evening of our dreams to the tune of music from five continents. And DJ Duo Das blaue Wunder feat. Magnus und Norbert will spin decades of collected vinyl delicacies in a musical selection once could almost call eclecticist.
TEDDY AWARD JURY PREDRAG AZDEJKOVIĆ from Serbia is the Director of the international queer film festival "Merlinka". Furthermore he is the Editor in Chief of "GayEcho", an LGBT News Portal, and of Serbia’s only gay magazine "Optimist". Since 2001 he is active in the field of LGBT rights as the founder and director of a Gay and Lesbian Info Centre. For his activism he received the prize for the best approach in fighting for the rights of discriminated groups by the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation. YVONNE P. BEHRENS is a native of Germany and has been living in the USA since 1999. She is the Executive Director of the PORTLAND QUEER FILM FESTIVAL and Director of the PORTLAND GERMAN FILM FESTIVAL. While living in Los Angeles, she worked for the UCLA Film & TV Archive and screened for the AFI FEST. She is a Committee Member of the LGBT group for the "Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA)" and a contributor to the Outfest/UCLA Legacy Project. NICK DEOCAMPO is a gay filmmaker, author and film professor from the Philippines. He is the Festival Chairman of the "Quezon City International Pink Film Festival". Deocampo received his Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies in New York University and his Certificate in Film in Paris. He has won numerous awards for his pioneering gay-themed documentaries and personal films that touched on themes of politics, and gender. He was among the first recipients of the Asian Public Intellectuals fellowship grant. BRADLEY FORTUIN was born in Windhoek, Namibia, and later moved to Botswana. He is member of the Lesbians Gays Bisexuals of Botswana (LeGaBiBo) and of the organizing committee of the annual "Batho Ba Lorato Film Festival". As a young and vibrant intellectual he uses social media to inspire, uplift and educate people about the different issues that affect the LGTBI in Botswana. Fortuin is currently perusing his Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and Information Management at the University of Botswana. MUFFIN HIX is a Film Programmer for "Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest" in London. The DIY festival was launched in 2011 as a response to arts cuts and has been growing ever since. Hix is also Programmer for "The Lost Picture Show", travelling pop-up vintage picture palace, and Programme Coordinator for the "BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival". An American expat loving London, she holds a BA in English and Film Studies from The College of William and Mary in Virginia and an MA in Film Curating from The London Consortium. SHANA MYARA is the festival programmer of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. She is an award winning writer whose work is featured in "The Journey Prize Stories: Canada's Best New Writing, Coming Attractions" and has been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Award among other prizes. Furthermore she wrote the short screenplay "Newcomers Swim Every Friday" which was directed by Meghna Haldar.
MASCHA NEHLS is a freelancer in the field of art exhibitions and events in Berlin. In 2007 the „entzauber queer D.I.Y.“ film festival was brought to live and Mascha has been with it since then. The festival’s focus lies on D.I.Y. films and brings together international queer artists and activists. Furthermore she curated film programmes in exhibitions and festivals in Hamburg, Barcelona and Montreal. Mascha wants to create spaces for the exchange of ressources and knowledge.
GUSTAVO SCOFANO was born and lives in Rio de Janeiro. He holds a BA degree in Communication Studies from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Currently he is Head of Programming for "Festival do Rio, the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival". He has also worked with documentary research & acquisition for pay TV and art house theatrical distribution. Over the past years at "Festival do Rio", he has curated midnight and genre sections, as well as retrospectives and music documentary sidebars. DIEGO TREROTOLA is an Argentinean film critic, programmer and professor of film theory. He was a programmer at the Buenos Aires based "Bafici Film Festival" for six editions and the "Mar del Plata Film Festival" for two editions. In 2000, he created his own film exhibit, called "Audiovisual Queer”, and currently programs the LGBTIQ film festival "Asterisco" in Buenos Aires. His writings on film got published in several countries. He is also member of Fipresci, the international association of film critics.
DAVID KATO AWARD The David Kato Vision & Voice Award: Celebrating Individuals Who Uphold the Sexual Rights of LGBTI People Around the World © Katherine Fairfax Wright - Call Me Kuchu
Founded in commemoration of the life and work of renowned Ugandan human rights activist David Kato, the David Kato Vision & Voice Award honors activists who demonstrate courage and outstanding leadership in advocacy for LGBTI sexual rights. As the Litigation & Advocacy Officer with the Ugandan LGBTI rights organization Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), David Kato campaigned tirelessly for human rights, and for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) Africans in particular. David spoke truth to power, both at home and abroad, and his numerous contributions to key policy issues are a testimony to his tireless advocacy efforts. In January 2011, David’s life was cut short by a brutal act of violence, a tragedy that will linger in the hearts of his colleagues in the global LGBTI community for years to come. “David Kato was a hero not just to LGBT Ugandans, but to all Ugandans and to all supporters of human rights worldwide,” said Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of SMUG. “The death of David will only be honored when the struggle for justice and equality is won.” Following David’s death, his colleagues from around the world came together to establish the David Kato Vision and Voice Award in honor of his life and legacy. Now in its third year, the DKVVA is awarded annually to an individual who strives to uphold the numerous dimensions of sexual rights for LGBTI people, particularly in hostile contexts where LGBTI people face rejection, marginalization, isolation, and persecution. The award supports the recipient with a one-time grant of $10,000 to continue their vital work. The David Kato Award has been given away for the first
time in 2012 to Maurice Thomlinson. Thomlinson, an attorney and LGBTI activist, was born 1971 in Montego Bay, Jamaica. After finishing his law degree, he supported the idea of human rights and became an activist to change discrimnatory laws. In 2009 he became legal advisor for the international advocacy organization AIDS-Free World and fought to improve the situation of homosexuals around the globe and especially in Jamaica. After his marriage with Canadian Tom Decker in August 2011, Thomlinson received death threats and began living in exile in Toronto, Canada. Ali Erol, the David Kato Award winner in 2013, founded the queer-rights Kaos GL organization in 1994, the first of its kind in Turkey. Since he began his work in LGBTI rights, Ali has had to fight against many forms of police and state pressure, including detentions and numerous court cases. LGBTI people remain largely hidden in Turkey as they continue to be subjected to humiliation and violence. The Trans Murder Monitoring project shows that Turkey has by far the most reported murders of trans people in Europe, with 29 reported since January 2008. The 2014 David Kato award went to the 75-year old Cambodian transgender activist Sotheavy Sou. In the period of the Khmer Rouge regime Sotheavy was harshly persecuted by being tortured and repeatedly raped. After the fall of the regime, her first involvement with human rights advocacy began in 1985. In 1999 Sotheavy established the Cambodian Network for Men Women Development (CMWD), the first Cambodian NGO to support LGBTI people. Because of her persistent efforts against LGBTI discrimination, the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen called for the inclusion of LGBTI in all working fields during a speech in 2012.
HARALD CHRIST Einsatz für Toleranz
Wie sollen wir in unserer Gesellschaft mit Intoleranz, Xenophobie, Homophobie oder gar Hass umgehen? Eine Frage, die momentan wieder sehr aktuell ist. Dabei ist es wichtig, dass die Ängste, Sorgen und Nöte der Menschen offen aufgenommen und angehört werden. In Gesprächsrunden und Diskussionsforen gibt es die Möglichkeit dazu. Wichtig ist aber auch, dass man bewusst in der Öffentlichkeit und im privaten Umfeld Position für eine offene, tolerante Gesellschaft bezieht. Es vorlebt! Die Grundlage für unsere freiheitlich demokratische Grundordnung ist unser weltoffenes Zusammenleben im Alltag. Wir müssen im Miteinander darauf hinwirken, dass es gar nicht erst zu Übergriffen und Anschlägen kommt. – Dies ist eine Aufgabe, die jeden einzelnen von uns betrifft. Sie spricht unser gemeinsames Verantwortungsbewusstsein für das Gemeinwohl an und fordert Mut, Eigeninitiative, Solidarität, Toleranz sowie Weltoffenheit ein. Die Kampagne Shut Up Haters! des TEDDY Awards ist u.a. ein Element, um auf Hass-Prediger hinzuweisen und ein Bewusstsein dafür zu schaffen, dass nicht jede Kommentierung, Positionierung und Meinungsäußerung zwingend das Selbstverständnis aller ist und daher mitunter die Grenzen der Toleranz überschreitet. Im Umgang mit Konflikten im eigenen Umfeld ist das aktive Annehmen der unterschiedlichen Vorstellungen der verschiedensten Lebensformen unerlässlich. Es bedarf Akzeptanz und Respekt dafür, dass wir verschieden sind. In Deutschland sind wir in dieser Richtung schon weit gekommen. Ich bin nun 43 Jahre alt und kann aus eigener Erfahrung sagen, dass das Thema Toleranz vor 20 Jahren bei weitem nicht so ausgeprägt war wie heute. Wir sind deutlich weiter gekommen und ich bin zuversichtlich, dass sich diese Entwicklung auch fortsetzen wird. Dabei ist allerdings zu berücksichtigen, dass wir nicht in allen Bereichen dort sind, wo wir heute schon sein müssten. So haben wir nach wie vor viele Bereiche des beruflichen Alltages, in denen der offene Umgang mit einer anderen geschlechtlichen Orientierung ein großes Problem darstellt. Je mehr Menschen dafür werben, dass Sie und wir alle in einer Gesellschaft leben wollen, die tolerant ist, die offen ist und in der Gleichberechtigung eine große
Rolle spielt, desto weiter entwickelt sich unsere Gesellschaft unabhängig von der Religion, Hautfarbe und Herkunft des Einzelnen. Eine bedeutende Position nehmen auch Filme, Literatur, Musik ein. Sie sind Puzzleteile, die mit den verschiedensten Inhalten, Perspektiven und Themen zum Nachdenken anregen. Sie öffnen damit immer wieder Türen in andere, hoffentlich neue, Welten, die Offenheit und Toleranz fördern. Der TEDDY AWARD hat eine lange Tradition als Teil der Berlinale. Gerade dieses Thema, das Prämieren eines queeren Filmpreises, zieht weltweite Aufmerksamkeit auf sich. So ein Projekt zu unterstützen, ist unglaublich wichtig. Und auch der TEDDY ist natürlich nur möglich, durch den intensiven persönlichen Einsatz vieler ehrenamtlicher Helfer und durch Sponsoring. Dies zeigt einmal mehr: Jeder einzelne kann sich gegen Hass, Intoleranz und Gewaltbereitschaft täglich in seinem persönlichen Umfeld durch sein eigenes Verhalten und seine wertschätzende Kommunikation mit seinen Mitmenschen positionieren und sich somit für eine weltoffene und tolerante Gesellschaft einsetzen. Behandeln Sie jeden Menschen so wie Sie selbst behandelt werden wollen! Im Rahmen der eigenen beruflichen, wirtschaftlichen und/oder gesellschaftlichen Möglichkeiten hilft auch jedes Engagement in Organisationen und Vereinen, die sich dafür einsetzen. Dank des persönlichen Einsatzes werden viele Projekte erst möglich – auch der TEDDY AWARD!
Š Greg Gorman, courtesy of Hohmann Fine Art
ARTEHOLICS - D 2013/2014
This unworldly greeny blue He worked with Warhol, Fassbinder, Schlingensief and Lars von Trier. Now he’s playing the lead in a new TV drama. Udo Kier is the most decadent and captivating German actor in the United States. We visited him at home in Palm Springs.
by Katja Nicodemus It’s great that there are people who in the middle of the afternoon in the Californian desert, when it’s 43 degrees in the shade, answer their mobile phone after just one ring and come straight to the point. Udo Kier tells me, “I’m just working out with my personal trainer. When we were filming in Vienna I had sachertorte every day for brunch. I’ll get to the hotel at five, then we’ll drive to my place, go for dinner and tomorrow we’ll drive to my ranch. Bye.” This combination of precision and exuberance is probably necessary for someone like Kier, who for five decades has swung between the genres of trash, pop and arthouse back and forth across the Atlantic. It was Rainer Werner Fassbinder who introduced him to cinema, with Kier getting away at just the right time. In Christoph Schlingensief’s “100 Years of Adolf Hitler”, he played the Führer as a sweaty junkie. He was the NASA psychologist in the blockbuster “Armageddon” and the assiduous wedding planner in Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia”. Together with Madonna he saddled muscular guys for her erotic photo book, also playing her devilish guru in the video to “Deeper and Deeper”. These are simply some of the tamer images of this demonic performer; an actor who never forgot his Cologne roots and, unbelievably, is shortly to turn 70.
We meet in Palm Springs, California. The hotel, arranged around a small pool, is Udo Kier’s recommendation. With raw concrete and psychedelic tiled walls, it has the gracefully peeling charm of the seventies. The vague presence of Kier – the teenage designer who remodelled his coffee table with a mosaic of broken tiles – can be discerned somehow. This is a man whose journey has taken him to London, Paris, Rome, Munich, New York and Hollywood before reaching now the American desert. It is 25 years since Kier left Germany for Los Angeles, where he still has a home. For the last ten years he has been living in Palm Springs. Considered by some a luxury ghetto for wealthy pensioners to spend the winter months at the poolside, gazing at snowcapped mountains and terrorising their Hispanic gardeners, this place has also become a refuge for the stars, escaping the hellhole of Los Angeles for the tranquillity of the desert. This is where Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Elvis Presley, Lauren Bacall, Marlene Dietrich and Elizabeth Taylor all came to live. It is entirely in keeping with this tradition that Udo Kier, a child of Cologne and for decades Germany’s most decadent and captivating actor export to the United States, has made it his home, too. This is all too evident from his entrance in the hotel lobby.
he took on the leading role in the eight-part family drama for Austrian TV “Altes Geld” (Old Money). This is a grotesque saga centred around a patriarch searching for a liver donor who is surrounded by his quarrelling family motivated by greed and malice. This was followed a few months later by the release of the documentary “Arteholic”, a journey through European museums, that celebrates Udo Kier as an art aficionado and friend of the artists. It seems that there is plenty going on around the man who once said he would like to be reborn as an Arne Jacobsen designer chair as these are always so lovingly oiled. BLOOD FOR DRACULA - USA 1974
4.59pm. Kier arrives. His eyes are a piercing, unworldly, greeny blue, appearing to faze the young woman at the reception desk. Kier exudes discreet eccentric glamour with the air of a cheeky young rascal. Although dressed in sportswear he holds open the door of his jeep for his visitor as if cloaked in a tuxedo. This is it – the combination of nonchalance and sophistication. Dramatic features, as if cast of iron, and within a vibrant and sensitive soul. Kier’s eyes are gentle – although their powerful capacity to penetrate the screen in devilish, piercinga nd brutal manner is all too familiar. Fassbinder was the first to expose this “Kier effect”, the ability to modulate between tender and brutal. In Fassbinder’s 1977 film “The Stationmaster’s Wife”, Kier is a hairdresser who seduces a customer, played by Elisabeth Trissenaar. Whispering in conspiratorial tones and hypnotic voice he counsels the young provincial woman to go for Greta Garbo curls. “As I said, Madam, I do not wish to cajole you.” Prior to this devil-like appearance, Kier had already fought the inquisition in the horror film “Mark of the Devil”, spewed litres of blood in Andy Warhol’s “Dracula” and enslaved naked women in the French erotic shocker “The Story of O.” However, as so often, it was Fassbinder who recognized the actor’s particular talent. Someone who is at ease with himself and yet, irritatingly, stands an inch away from himself. This is the gap in which a deep chasm in his character looms. On screen Kier does not have to attempt to be a different person, as there is place within this chasm for the most eccentric of visual universes and the weirdest of screen fantasies. It is this ability to exist outside of his own skin that makes him such a great trash performer. Take, for example, the devotion with which he plays the baby that enters the world in Lars von Trier’s hospital mini-series “Kingdom”, bearing an adult Udo Kier head, abandoned by his mother. Or his portrayal of the coughing and spluttering leader of a group of Nazis living on the Moon in the science fiction film “Iron Sky”. Exaggeration would destroy such figures. However, Kier’s performance fills them with a strange dignity. In the summer of 2014, following the death of Gert Voss,
I wonder if he owns lots of great furniture. The route to his place in Palm Springs takes us down the broad highway of Palm Canyon Drive. We go past holiday apartments, boutiques, restaurants, palm-lined boulevards. Suddenly Kier pulls off the road. “I just want to have a look”, he says, as he jumps from the vehicle. Standing on the parking lot of a car dealer is a collection of old Bentleys, Buicks and Chevrolets waiting to be admired. Tenderly Kier strokes his hand across the bodywork of a Ford Mustang. Is it his energizing presence or the desert sun burning away my tiresome European rationality that leads me to imagine spending 6,500 dollars on this yellow 1979 Cadillac Eldorado? Back in the car, Kier says, “It’s nice to look at pretty things.” As we enter his home, a light brick-built construction from the sixties, this sentence takes on a meaning of its own. The building, a former library, is essentially one large room featuring glass doors and broad windows. The walls are hung with artwork by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Sigmar Polke, David Hockney, Rosemarie Trockel and Robert Longo. The floor area is filled with classic designer items by Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and, of course, Arne Jacobsen. But the room has nothing of a museum about it, something that is helped by the casual disarray visible in one or more corners. Udo Kier gives his visitor a treat to feed to Blue, his old crossbreed dog, which comes ambling into the room from its sleeping quarters. Kier wants to go and shower but holds back, too busy enjoying the outsider’s gaze, “Look at this”, he says, “there’s a shopping bag hanging here that was signed in 1964 by Andy Warhol and by Lichtenstein too.” Kier doesn’t try to hide his enthusiasm at being back at home with his pictures after two months of filming in Vienna. Everything is hung closely together. Many works are dedicated: To Udo with love. “They’re nearly all gifts”, he says. “And reminders. Robert Longo – that was someone I made a film with. Hockney is a friend of mine. Mapplethorpe took pictures of me. Warhol is someone I worked with.” It’s easy to imagine how Warhol took a shine to the almost unnatural sexiness of the 19-year old whom he quickly included in his circle of friends. It was the New York of parties, of Studio 54, of ateliers, of the Factory. Kier takes a pragmatic view of this period in the
early seventies. “Warhol was important for me, as I moved from the regular newsprint to the glossy-coated pages and to Vogue. I now had the chance to be photographed with Warhol and his dachshund called Archibald. Everything suddenly became sophisticated. We entered Maxim’s and everyone called out ‘Hi Andy!’” Is it the down-to-earth character of this working class boy? Or the look of a man who has met so many big names they don’t overawe him, particularly not in his own living room. Kier seems to be most proud of his own discoveries that hang between the celebrity works. Paintings, still lifes, sketches by unknown artists. Essentially, Udo Kier has collected his art in the same way as his films, insatiably, driven by curiosity, showing great style even amongst the trash and with a playful seriousness. “Look here. This landscape cost me only eight dollars at the junk shop.” He impresses on me that we really should go on a tour of the junk shops together – before he then disappears, after all, into the bathroom. The table Udo Kier has reserved for an early dinner is at Spencer’s, the restaurant at Palm Springs Tennis Club. The walls are wood panelled, the guests go from lightly greying through to silver and in the middle a sleepy pianist is idly tinkling some tunes. It is hard to believe that outside, with temperatures around 40 degrees, air-conditioning units are misting the tennis courts. In these surroundings it feels strange to be talking about post-war Germany and Fassbinder.
still from the Rhineland, Kier tells me. “That’s where I grew up, where they’re warmhearted and plain-speaking.” He utters a phrase or two in local dialect to prove his point. “And of course Cologne wouldn’t be Cologne without the cathedral”, he continues. “I loved all that pomp and glamour.” He tells me that he has no desire to return to Germany despite the old school building he has bought in Thuringia, which houses his books and more of his furniture. Parked in front of the hotel, Kier goes round the jeep to open the passenger door. I tell him he doesn’t need to. But he gestures with his head towards the reception, saying “Oh yes I do, they’re watching us.” Now he sounds very Cologne-like. The next day we rip through Morongo Valley, clouds of dust trailing behind us. Here, in the Western-like hills behind Palm Springs, some twenty miles from the city, Udo Kier recently bought a ranch. It reminds him of Bonanza, but with a German twist, he tells me as we pause briefly while the gates to the ranch open. Within a large property planted with many trees and palms, there is a low building with a covered wooden veranda. This house too is filled with pictures and furniture. The style is more homespun. Each piece has its own character but as an ensemble it works well. As we walk across the property, Kier tells me that he planted all the palms and trees himself. The veranda too is his own
They got to know each other at a time when Fassbinder was not yet Fassbinder. Two fifteen-year olds who bumped into each other from time to time in a working class bar in Cologne also frequented by characters from the red light scene. Udo, the trainee clerk, and Rainer Werner, the teenager attending school in Cologne. Two young voyeurs, fascinated by the spectacle of life. “There was a transvestite there who called himself the Jewish princess”, Kier says. “And Rita. She had a sex-change operation in Casablanca and showed us the results in the basement.” Years later, when the two ran into each other again in Munich, Fassbinder told Kier that initially he had not wanted him in his films as Kier’s presence reminded him of those years. And for him, that had not been a good period. “And for most of us, in fact”, Kier adds. “I grew up without a father. At home there was no hot water and we had no money. I couldn’t stay on at school. And I had to do this apprenticeship that I hated.” But he explains that he looked like Elvis Presley. “My mother was a seamstress. That meant I had the skinniest trousers. Birch oil in my hair, pointed shoes, boat neck white T-shirt and a black curl, just like Presley.” Driving back, beneath the atmospheric skies of a clear desert night, we talk about feelings of home. Los Angeles, Hollywood, Palm Springs, take it or leave it – at heart he is
NYMPHOMANIAC - DK,D,F,B,UK 2013
work, built together with a carpenter. And what is kept in the two massive shipping containers standing behind the house? “More furniture”, is Kier’s answer. For him, the ranch is part of his staging for the American Dream. “For me it is a ranch because it fulfils the image of a ranch. Here are the snakeskin cowboy boots, there’s the well, and the pick-up is parked by the door.” He never uses the truck. From Morongo Valley we drive further into the desert. Here, almost on the edge of Joshua Tree Park, Kier owns another property. It is home to many of this strangely formed plant species, the Joshua Tree. And to a huge converted barn. Green Velvet is the name given by Kier to the green-painted structure, as a homage to David Lynch. And because it is furnished in a totally different style, magical somehow, with animal figures, a green velvet sofa, heavy wooden dressers. On the edge of the property are another two shipping containers. Furniture? “For sure”, says Udo Kier. Does he want to live forever? Always buying homes and properties, creating and fitting out new spaces? The expanse of the desert appears to be a place for Kier to explore and dramatize his own self. An extension of his some 200 films through a process of unbounded, omnivorous, obsessive collecting. And, just as he does with
all the furniture in the containers, homes and barns, through his very person all the roles great and small, distinguished and inane, come together to form a whole. To become the allembracing art form – the Gesamtkunstwerk – that is Udo Kier. Noon the next day. At home with Udo Kier. His partner, the artist Delbert McBride, returns from shopping. Udo Kier is talking to his agent on the phone and turns down the offer for a role. Blue is sleeping. Everyday life in Palm Springs. In the middle of the room there is a slim perspex display cabinet. Above it hangs a leather jacket. Kier explains that Keith Haring ecorated it for him in his New York atelier. “I threw the thing into the corner at discos. Until someone told me I was mad and that it was a valuable work of art.” Now the jacket is going to be kept on a golden coat hanger in the display cabinet. Is that not the opposite of his living collection? Turning Kier’s life into a museum piece, preserved behind glass? “No way”, says Udo Kier. “When I want to go out wearing the jacket, I’ll take it out of the cabinet”. With a Cologne lilt to his voice, he adds, “It’s easy. I’ll just fit a door here on the side.” This article was first published in German in DIE ZEIT No 42/2014.
© Christian Braad
HE IS RUNNING AROUND THE WORLD LIKE AN OPEN RAZOR BLADE AND ONE MIGHT GET CUT!
“I don’t throw bombs, I make films.” by Egbert Hörmann The comet-like existence of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, probably Germany’s most important post-war director with 41 films in only 13 years, burned up in 1982 at the young age of 37, due to an “overdose of work” (in the words of Fassbinder confidante Harry Baer). His death left behind a vacuum in the European film landscape unfilled to this very day and a unique, multi-faceted, unsettlingly beguiling and wonderfully unfathomable body of work which, on closer inspection, possesses nonetheless a remarkable linearity, consistency and coherence. The scandalous image of the man himself casts a long shadow over his films and creative activities as theatre and film director, actor, producer, playwright and social commentator. Fassbinder is regularly invoked with a cosy shudder, even today, as a monstrous and gruesome genius – mythical, manic, tearing down barriers, brutal, masochistic,
vulgar, sparing nothing and nobody (least of all himself). At the same time, one recognizes in him also a tender soul, an exceptionally shy person, a great lover with a deep and immediate feeling for the characters developed by him, someone whose knowing Weltschmerz quickly transformed into hyperactivity. Today it is hard to imagine how fascinatingly novel and unsettling the entry was of this agent provocateur on the sedate landscape of German film (the admission of his first feature film, shot with unbelievable aggression, “Love is Colder than Death” in the official competition section of the 1969 Berlin Film Festival provoked a scandal). His work never denied its origins in the subcultural avantgarde. At the same time, Fassbinder sought to break into and intervene in discussions on a broad spectrum of cultural and social questions and made films that were both decidedly political and critical
in their approach and, at the same time, as popular as Hollywood cinema, which he loved above all. A particular inspiration in this regard were the films of Douglas Sirk whose mega-meta kitsch, even in the happy ends, is of a classically pessimistic calibre. Many elements make Fassbinder’s cinema films so specific (his work for television must be assessed separately). These include stylistic devices from particular genres such as film noir, gangster films and, of course, melodrama with its internal contradictions, at the core of which is the experience of loss and events that do not take place and, above all, words that are not spoken. Other essential elements are an unconventional Marxism, the Freudian un-, pre- and subconscious, popular culture of West Germany, the curse of German fascism, Brecht’s aesthetics of alienation and also a good helping of Warhol and camp sensibility. Like Werner Schroeter he never shied away from pathos – according to Nabokov, one of the fundamental elements of great art. He unified all that in a style that was raw, highly charged, monumental, coldly distanced and of extreme and uncompromising artificiality. Nonetheless, in the “unmasking of consciousness” à la Ödön von Horváth, it never lost touch with social and political reality.
friendships between men, the right to resist, money as the spiritual essence of capital society, love as a commodity (always proving ruinous) inexorably subject to the rule that he who loves must also pay, the impossibility to find love and happiness in bourgeois families, time and again the vicious circle of economic, emotional and sexual exploitation and, finally, in this connection, the observation that in romantic relationships class and educational difference always make their mark. From his earliest works, Fassbinder addressed the issues of gender difference and sexual identity which, presented in such laconic and straightforward manner, was an absolute novelty in German film. At times he was bitterly attacked by “Woolworth feminists” (great hue and cry surrounded “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant”). But, in fact, feminism has many variants. Just like Kenji Mizoguchi, for whom Japan’s deep-rooted and most destructive crisis was the enslavement of women (regarding marriage as free prostitution, to which housework is added, and capitalism as the official form of prostitution), Fassbinder was a ladies’ man. He was a great director of women, who gave us many wonderful female actors: Ingrid
“My films are about dependency”. His last monumental masterwork (or, if you prefer, monster work) is Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), a film drawn most definitely from the darkest depths of humanity, and intended for a Martian cinema much as Karl Kraus intended his play “The Last Days of Mankind” for performance in a Martian theatre, and which brings together once again the central themes of Fassbinder. These include the admiration for independent women, the fascination of
© Christian Braad
With his very own comédie humaine, Fassbinder was an author in the mould of Balzac. From the outset he had a vision which then became his mission. He wanted to become the chronicler of West Germany’s domestic history. His political reality was a society still heavily bogged down in the Nazi mire, caught up in a mania of construction, repression and Cold War angst, that had failed to seize the opportunity after 1945 for radical renewal and that remained, until the end of the sixties, a strictly patriarchial and conservative feudal democracy.
“No-one whose thoughts take place within an ideology which exists outside of the person is capable of liking my films. I make films for people who do not think in pre-packaged programmes. The others watch my films and hate them, because they have understood that.” During his creative period from 1969 to 1982, in which he wrote film history, Fassbinder did not fit any of the existing models. It was impossible to bring it all together: this elitist pariah, this exorbitant lifestyle, this open homosexuality, this productivity and also this attrition. And it was indeed difficult to bear this freedom and this radicalness, which rejected all appeasement and consensus, this wholehearted artistic self-revelation, exemplified in the introductory 26-minute episode that sets the tone for the entire episodic film “Germany in Autumn” premiered at the 1978 Berlin Film Festival. Critics from abroad, freed from the burden of German history, soon heaped praise on this exceptional talent. For example, his 1979 film “The Third Generation”, largely rejected by German critics, was for an American commentator “the modern successor of Fritz Lang’s ‘Doctor Mabuse’ films”. The first retrospective of his work was shown in Paris in 1976. In the same year came the first critical study from London. A year later, a triumphant retrospective followed in New York in which he was celebrated as the “greatest European talent”. His 1977 international production “Despair” marked a move into cinema d’auteur and, finally, in 1979 “ The Marriage of Maria Braun” was Fassbinder’s breakthrough to success with German audiences. As a director, Fassbinder came to represent Germany as a result of his serious obsession but
most probably also through his “heaviness” and “lack of humour”. According to Proust, the climate and the landscape are the two factors that form and shape an individual (to which, as a third factor, should be added history, a being which is brutal, unrelenting and blind). Consequently, although he was at home in leather bars all over the world and had an apartment in Paris, Fassbinder remained a child of West Germany, more specifically, Munich. “This ‘baring of the soul’ was part of Fassbinder’s fictionalised persona. He was and remained above all a storyteller, and probably the only German filmmaker of the twentieth century to possess such a broad sympathetic vision of human beings to engender (and ‘gender’) a world which is unmistakably his and at the same time offers itself to be if not entered, then, in any event, recognised by others.” (Thomas Elsaesser) The unique work of this catalyst appears preserved today in film museums and film studies departments. However, notwithstanding its particular historic context, it remains valid and fresh, time and again, (in the same way as the work of Pasolini) because it provokes topical, aesthetic, creative and critical debates and irritations.
Artwork by Rinaldo Hopf
Caven, Irm Hermann, Brigitte Mira, Margit Carstensen, Barbara Sukowa, Rosel Zech and Elisabeth Trissenar. And above all, of course, the incomparable Hanna Schygulla, the dreamy suburban goddess. Fassbinder’s profound understanding for the situation of women is also evident in his view that German history could best be told through the stories of women. Within the context of the capitalist post-war hierarchy, Fassbinder considered women (incidentally, also a highly complex issue in his personal life) an example of social underdogs but not as victims.
PARTY-SHUTTLE-BUS And for those of you for whom the night is not enough and who want to party all day, we organized a party shuttle bus which will bring you to the
TEDDY AWARD Closing Party at the SchwuZ. Entrance is included in the Gala ticket fee.
Departure from 12:30 am - every 30 minutes
TLE BUS T U H S
TEDDY Party ARTISTS Gloria Viagra
© Sally B
Berlin's one and only "Empire State Building" of drag entertainment... Tall, nasty, professional... Every 2nd Friday of the month Gloria Viagra runs her own party PARTYSANE! at SchwuZ club! Furthermore, she does shows and sings live with her own band "SqueezeBOX"! She won awards as "2nd Best National DJ 2009" and "Best Drag Queen 2010", as well as she performed at "The Voice of Germany" in 2012! A showgirrrrrrl, which whirls all around the globe and fights for human rights with political actions.
Pa$cha
© Pa$cha
Known as a party organizer, Pa$cha is mixing R’n’B and hip hop music as a DJ. Every month, he spins his records at ”Partysane“ and, in addition, holds his regular party ”Peaches & Cream“ in different venues.
Disco Gressner The DJ-gene runs in the family: with inheriting the vinyl collection of both his mum and his brother, Disco Gessner's career pass was kind of predestined. Mixing original disco-tracks with modern housebeats, he quickly gained international fame. Today he's one of the germany's most experienced DJ's.
© TraeschickPhotography
Black Cracker & Friends Stoic as fuck, with a baby face and a set of blue-collar shoulders, Ellison Renee Glenn aka Black Cracker rocks a swag aesthetic that lies somewhere between Dipset and Blackbox. Currently living between Berlin and Lausanne, but based professionally out of NYC, he works as a producer/MC/writer and has collaborated with the likes of Cocorosie, Creep, Bunny Rabbit and Grand Pianoramax, among others.
Born and raised in the former East Berlin, Hintergrundrauschen is very much influenced by the technoid Berlin sound of the early 1990s. He belongs to the „young guard“ of the new Berlin DJ talent. His sets sparkle with emotionally charged energy, with musical roots reaching from Kraftwerk to Donna Summer to Carl Craig. Besides Cologne he also enjoyed gigs all over Europe as well as the gay club scene in Berlin and his monthly residency in Tresor Club
© Hintergrundrauschen
Hintergrundrauschen
The TEDDY foundation executive committee Dr. Christian Peters Wieland Speck Rica Takayama managing director Klaus Mabel Aschenneller TEDDY reception staff Karsten Aurich Tom Begerow Jürgen Hanold Kirsten Lenk Markus Werner Thorben Zöger TEDDY press crew Christian Abraham Gael Boudjema Camille Chanel Marie Gutbub Susanne Groth Tim Steinmetzger
artist relations Anne Jakob Thomas Hanke Marek Heinemann Jörg Holetschek Tina Kreklau Uli Schuster volunteers Tassilo Bade Claus Brandt Pia Bursch Charlotte Daum Ralph Ehrlich Amanda Halbrock Marek Heinemann Myriam Hofmeister Pauline Junginger Sabine Kaatzer Rozerin Karaben Matthias Kühne Monika Küpper Mahíde Lein Molnar Liz
Angela Modest Andreas Panknin Julia Pargmann Isabelle Przysucha Marita Scherger Angela Schmerfeld Schwestern der perpetuellen Indulgenz Sylvia Stratis Andrea Vogt Markus Wechsler Mirko Wienke Bus shuttle hostesses Gaby Tupper Estelle van der Rhone
The TEDDY foundation thanks its patrons and prize money donators. Without your kind support our work would not be possible! Der TEDDY e.V. bedankt sich bei seinen Mäzenen und Preisgeldspendern, ohne deren freundliche Unterstützung unsere Arbeit nicht möglich wäre! Apotheke am Viktoria-Luise-Platz / Berghain / Stephan Binder / Böhme, Lipp, Lutz – Zahnärzte / Jurgen Daenens / Das Finanzkontor / Wolfgang Erichson, Bürgermeister Heidelberg / Serafin Fernández Rodriguez / gayParship / GENFILMS Production Ltd. / Grüne Apotheke / Drs. Jessen & Kollegen / Michael Harckensee / Härting Rechtsanwälte / Thomas Hermanns / Michael Kasten / Klaus Koch / Raimond Krúze / Evgeny Kulyushin / Matthias Landwehr / Ralf Gregor Lipus / Bork Melms / Ralph Morgenstern / OUT tv Media / Fred Peemöller / Queerlesque.de / Alexander Rosenberg / Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss / Pro-Fun Media GmbH / Jan Schneider / Klaus Schrader / Christian Schulz / Michael Schweizer / Dr. Paul Skidmore / Ulf Spengler / Frank Strobel / Dario Suter / Olaf Völzke Special thanks go to Cine Plus Media Service GmbH & Co. KG / Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin/KBB / medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg / Harald Christ / Buchladen Eisenherz / Regenbogenfonds e.V. / Kino International - Yorck Kino GmbH / MB-Finanzberatung Gaby Büttner / Oktoberdruck / Medservice Stockmann / Myers Hotel / Schwermetall Schmuckdesign / partyworks / La Cocotte Restaurant / MORE Berlin Café / Gloria Viagra´s Partysane / SchwuZ