tockholm/Berlin -- The 10th Nordic Polar Bear prize has been awarded
to the Copenhagen International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival -
which brings high-quality homo films annually not only to the Danish
capital but to other Danish cities and to the southern Swedish city
of Malmö across the Sound. The award also salutes the Danish
festival for deliberately dividing leadership between men and women
to ensure equality and completeness.
The Polar Bear prize is handed out annually by Tupilak -- the
organization of lesbian and gay cultural workers in the Nordic area.
It is announced during the Berlinale international film festival
where it was born -- along side the gay Teddy bear awards and the
festival's gold and silver bears.
First Polar Bears Handed out in Berlin
The early Polar Bear awards were announced and handed out in Berlin
at the Teddy ceremony, but in recent years have been handed out
at world homo cultural conferences and other international events.
The first Polar Bear award went to the late Manfred Salzgeber,
veteran employee at the Berlinale and pioneer distributor of AIDS
and other films. This was followed by American film director, Barbara
Hammer and a number of brand new homo film festivals in Iceland,
Latvia, Estonia and elsewhere. The festival in Bucharest was stopped
by armed police with dogs.
Last year's Polar Bear prize was shared by directors Epstein/Friedman
for their documentary, Paragraph 175 and the German
film director, Rosa von Praunheim, for his The Genius of Sex.
Colin de la Motte-Sherman
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