Thank you so much to everyone that was a part of the 17th XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin! We are excited to announce the winners of three Lolly Awards and the winner of the 9th Queer Short Film Fund, awarded by our 2023 festival jury, as well as the winners of the XPOSED Audience Awards for Short Film and Feature-Length Film.
This year, the jury has created their own additional titles for the three Lolly Award Winners of the 17th XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin. Each award comes with a cash prize of 250€.
Food for thought Award
Tornar-se um Homem na Idade Média (Becoming Male in the Middle Ages)
by Pedro Neves Marques
Portugal, 2022
“It is understated and sublime; science fiction meets reality. The cinematography is poetic and gorgeous; the shots are composed; the performances are measured; and it plays like a slice of reality from a not-so-distant future. The script is the reason for this Award. It’s the MVP. It opens up dialogue, gently, lyrically, like a lilac that blooms once a year; the color of which is soft and serene; and the overall effect is collective growth. Human beings need these dialogues to be had.”
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Diverse Languages Award
Os Animais Mais Fofos e Engraçados do Mundo
(The Cutest and Funniest Animals in the World)
by Renato Sircilli
Brazil 2023
We were happy to see the diversity and the types of characters we don’t see much on the screen. The narrative left us on the edges of our seats with unexpected ways the story took us on from beginning to end, using cinematic language in a very thought-out and thoughtful way.
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Relevation Award
Bigger on the Inside
by Angelo Madsen Minax
USA, 2022
The explosion of ideas connecting dots of desire and loneliness in stars of the universe of intimacy. It surprised us with its playfulness, wit and brilliance.
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Honorable Mention:
Behind Every Good Man
by Nikolai Ursin
USA, 1967
“Behind Every Good Man” is a poetic portrait of a Black trans woman in the US of the 1960’s. It is a Fundstück that deserves to be immortalized in contrast to the negatively connoted presence of queer, especially trans people in the media at the time.
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9th Queer Short Film Fund: “Cabin Fever” by Katrina Singleton
“Cabin Fever” promises a needed, refreshing look onto an event that altered all of us as a society – from micro to macro: the COVID pandemic, while exploring an intersectional perspective within an electrifying genre! We are very glad to support this project and wish the young director’s ambition comes to fruition through this grant.
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XPOSED Audience Award for Short Film
A Letter to Myself – Valerie
by Omar Gabriel
Lebanon/Canada, 2022
Valerie Saliba shares her personal battle to embrace her gay son. Through this journey, she finds her own voice as a courageous woman in a conservative country.
XPOSED Audience Award for Feature-Length Film
KOKOMO CITY by D. Smith, USA 2023
KOKOMO CITY gives us a contemporary glimpse into the lives of four Black trans women in NYC and Georgia, who are sex workers. With clarity and directness, they talk about their clients and lovers, their relationship to the Black community and their dreams and struggles with clarity and directness. In black and white images, director D. Smith captures black trans women’s lives through the lens and vision of another Black trans woman. The agenda is tapping into reality and rejecting projections, offering access to perspectives that rarely get to take up space.
