indieWIRE recently reported that the Venice Film Festival will inaugurate a new award to recognize a film with an LGBT theme, the Queer Lion (their awards are named "Lions"). With this, Venice joins the Berlin Film Festival as only the second major mainstream world film festival to offer a specific LGBT film award. A consideration of whether or not LGBT films need a specific award continues on the Guardian's blog. Running a LGBT film festival, here are my humble thoughts.

I've never been to the Venice Film Festival, but I have been attending the Berlinale for years. Their LGBT award, the Teddy (the festival's awards are named "Bears") has been presented for over 20 years and is an official award of the festival. In many ways, though, the Teddy Awards seem separate, whether by choice or by necessity - a separate group fundraises for the cash component of the awards, and they are not presented at the same time as the festival's main Bear awards, but instead as part of a separate, thoroughly European kooky variety-show spectacle that in the past has included twin contortionist acrobats, local German TV personalities, and who knows what else. The ceremony traditionally culminates in a giant party that draws virtually every LGBT person in Berlin - and proceeds from these events go back into the Teddy to keep the prize going. This is not to say that the Teddy is not an important part of the Berlinale - it draws support from key festival personnel like Dieter Kosslick and Wieland Speck, and from Berlin bigwigs like Mayor Klaus Wowereit - and I don't have any knowledge of how the funding for other awards are done.

As for the Teddy itself, jurors for the award are largely drawn from the ever-expanding world of LGBT film festivals, and they work from a list (compiled by the various sections of the festival) of films with LGBT themes/characters, or by LGBT directors. While there's never a guarantee that there will be a certain number of LGBT films in the festival, the Berlinale, and especially its Panorama section, have long been a haven for LGBT films.

While Berlin audiences are really into the Teddy, and maybe LGBT audiences in other parts of Europe, it doesn't seem to register among US audiences - then again, I don't know how much US audiences recognize the Silver Bear winner, or the Golden Lion winner either. They know Oscar and Golden Globe winners, and probably little else, to be honest.

The Teddy seems to function largely to celebrate LGBT film for the local Berlin LGBT community, and I imagine the Queer Lion will do the same. And that's important. Films that are part of the Berlinale or Venice are already singled out as being in a select group - I see nothing wrong with honoring the "best" gay film among that group, just as I wouldn't see anything wrong with honoring the "best" film by a female director, or the "best" first feature, etc. I don't think it will limit a film to win the award, or to be considered for it - a film that wins the Teddy or the Queer Lion should still be able to win a Golden Bear or Silver Lion, after all. And, again, I don't expect that the award will have much impact outside of the immediate LGBT community and, to a lesser extent, the LGBT film festival world.

Despite this insularity, it does say something about Venice that they have chosen to offer such an award - it's a recognition of a growing audience and an increased willingness to address this community and to try to draw more attention to our stories.

Maybe what's needed to make worldwide LGBT audiences take real notice of all of these awards is for Rotterdam to inaugurate a Pink Tiger to join its annual Tiger Awards - oh my! OK, that's probably a bit too gay...