Teddy Award

The Teddy Award is an international film award for films with LGBT topics, presented by an independent jury as an official award of the Berlin International Film Festival (the Berlinale). Here, an "independent jury" implies that its members are not officially selected by the committee of the Berlinale. In the most part, the jury consists of organisers of gay and lesbian film festivals, who view films screened in all sections of the Berlinale. Subsequently, a list of films meeting criteria for LGBT content is selected by the jury, and a 3,000-Euro Teddy is awarded to a feature film, a short film and a documentary. The award was first given in 1987.

At the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in 2016, a dedicated "Teddy30" lineup of classic LGBT-related films was screened as a full program of the festival to celebrate the award's 30th anniversary.

In 1987 German filmmakers Wieland Speck and Manfred Salzgeber formed a jury called the International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival Association (IGLFFA) to create an award for LGBT films.

The first Teddy Award was given to Pedro Almodóvar for his film La ley del deseo, which featured Antonio Banderas.

1990 was the first bigger festival in the LGBT centrum SchwuZ in Berlin with around 400 guests. The evening was organized from BeV StroganoV and workers of the bookstore Eisenherz in Berlin. In 1992 the award was officially made part of the Berlin International Film Festival. In 1997 TEDDY e.V., a non-profit organisation was founded, which lobbied the award.

There are three main categories in which the award is given:

One additional film is singled out for a Jury Award. A Special Award is commonly given for a distinguished achievement in LGBT cinema, such as a career lifetime achievement as a director or performer, or for a person's role in a project of significance to the history of LGBT cinema.

The German LGBT magazine Siegessäule formerly sponsored an award which was given to a film selected by a panel of the magazine's readers. This was discontinued after 2012, but was reinstituted in 2016 under the new sponsorship of the magazine Männer; in 2017, the award was named the Harvey in honour of Harvey Milk.

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