The jury of the 30th TEDDY AWARD, which will take place on February 19th in the STATION-Berlin. Nine renowned film makers and festival organisers will choose the laureates from the queer films of the Berlinale in the categories best film, best documentary/essay film and best short. Furthermore, they will award the TEDDY Jury Award.

Augustas Cicelis comes from Vilnius, Lithuania, and is the Director and Programmer of Vilnius LGBT* Festival “Kreives”. He has been involved in LGBT* activism and wider human rights movements for about a decade.

Alexandra Carastoian is a filmmaker, a photographer and a human rights activist from Romania. She has been a part of the two annual festivals: LGBT History Month and Bucharest Pride. Alexandra is the director of the first Feminist and Queer International Film Festival in Bucharest.

Alice Royer is a film and media scholar, archivist, and programmer from Los Angeles. She is the Legacy Project Manager at Outfest, where she oversees the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, the only program in the world exclusively dedicated to protecting and preserving LGBT film.

Dagmar Brunow is one of the programmers at the International Queer Film Festival Hamburg. As a film scholar she teaches Film Studies and Gender Studies in Sweden. Dagmar has been working for the Women’s Music Centre in Hamburg and has been one of the initiators of Ladyfest Hamburg

Adán Salinas Alverdi is a Mexico City based curator, programmer, researcher and artistic director. He is CEO of Global Cooperation Agency for Cultural Exchange and the General Director of MICGénero, International Film Festival with Gender Perspective.

Nosheen Khwaja is the artistic director of GLITCH - Europe’s first 10 day QTIPoC (Queer, Trans, Intersex, People of Colour) film festival and also the chair & leading tech tutor of the Digital Desperados filmmaking course for Women of Colour.

Serubiri Moses is an independent art writer, photograph and curator based in Kampala, Uganda. His interests lie in coloniality, language and cultural space..Last year Serubiri received the City Writer fellowship from the University of Bayreuth and curatorial fellowship from the Kadist Art Foundation in Paris.

Xiaogang Wei was born and raised in Xinjiang, China. Since 2010, he is the executive director of the NGO Beijing Gender Health Education Institute.  It constitutes one of the first Chinese NGOs to focus on issues of gender, sexuality and sexual health. Together with the BGHEI, Xiaogang  launched a series of groundbreaking events in China, including the China AIDS Walk and the China Rainbow Awards.

Jay Lin from Taiwan is the CEO of Portico Media, Chairman of the Taiwan International Media and Education Association, and Director of the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival.

The jury of the TEDDY AWARD will be officially presented on the occasion of the Jury Reception on Friday, February 12th, 2016 at 11pm in Südblock, Admiralstr. 1-2, 10999 Berlin Kreuzberg.

Wieland Speck, founder of the TEDDY AWARD and head of the Panorama will give information  on the queer films of this year’s Berlinale at the “Introduction to the TEDDY Film Selection” on the occasion of the MonGay special on February, 8th, 2016 at 10pm in the Kino International, Karl-Marx-Allee 33, 10178 Berlin. The entrance fees will be for the benefit of the Teddy e.V. (regular entrance fee 7€, reduced 6,50€). You can find more information at www.teddyaward.org.

Tickets for the TEDDY AWARD Ceremony on February 19th at the STATION-Berlin are available in the online shop at www.teddyaward.org. Ticket reservations can be made via email at tickets@papagena.deor via our ticket hotline 030-47997474.  Tickets can also be purchased without pre-sale fees at the Prinz Eisenherz Buchladen, Motzstrasse 23, 10777 Berlin

The TEDDY AWARD is the most significant queer film award in the world. It is a socially committed political award, that benefits people and films who communicate queer topics on a broad level and contribute to more tolerance, acceptance, solidarity and equality in societies.

The TEDDY AWARD is awarded in the course of the Berlinale since 1987 in the following categories: best feature, best documentary/essay film, best short. Furthermore, the Special TEDDY AWARD for artistic lifetime achievement is awarded to outstanding personalities. Films from all the sections of the Berlin International Film Festival compete each year for the popular TEDDY. The range of previous award-winners goes from international star directors like Pedro Almodóvar, Gus Van Sant, Derek Jarman, and Ulrike Ottinger to international film stars like Oscar winner Tilda Swindon, Helmut Berger, Joe Dallesandro, and John Hurt.

The TEDDY is a non-profit event that is mainly financed by its supporting members and patrons of the Teddy e.V., by donations from supporters and sponsors and through the work of volunteers as well as the profits of the award ceremony.