For the past two weeks, I had the honor of serving as the jury president for the Berlin International Film Festival's Teddy Awards, the oldest (of two) major mainstream world film festival LGBT film awards.

I always look forward to my annual sojourn to Germany's premier film festival - it comes on the heels of Sundance and so constitutes the second half of basically a month long immersion into the newest films on the film circuit. Berlin also usually marks my last big trip before NewFest preparations take over my life. So, since I have to watch all the LGBT films at Berlin for NewFest purposes anyway, serving on the Teddy Jury was in many ways very convenient - an all access badge, special screenings set up just for the jury, etc.


Of course, every jury also involves a diverse set of participants with potentially wildly divergent opinions on not only the films under consideration but also on the jury process or what the awards actually mean. Such was the case when the Berlinale brought together eight jurors from places as far-flung as Greece, Israel, Poland, Indonesia, Romania, Germany, Hong Kong, and the US. Some viewed the Teddy as an inherently political award, while others viewed it more as a film award. And, in a year where the documentaries under consideration were a lot stronger than the narratives, let's just say that deliberations got heated many times for all the categories we were selecting...


Still, the majority of the jury members were happy with our picks:
Best Short Film:
Tá



Best Documentary Film:
Football Under Cover



Best Narrative Film:
The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela



Special Jury Prize:
Be Like Others

(For a laugh, watch me mangle German in the telecast awarding this last prize).


Hopefully, a number of these films, if not all, will end up as part of NewFest 2008: The 20th Anniversary New York LGBT Film Festival, coming June 5-15 - and you can judge for yourself if we made the right decisions. Auf Wiedersehen!