Berlin has long been known as a city of firsts when it comes to queer achievements. The world’s first gay magazine, Der Eigene (The Unique) was published there in 1896, and the first known male-to-female gender reassignment surgery happened in Berlin as well in 1922.
When it comes to celebrating LGBTQ+ representation in film, the Berlin Film Festival also paved the way with the Teddy Awards, a prize established in 1987 to celebrate queer themes in each year’s lineup. Other festivals soon followed suit, including Cannes and Venice, but it was the Berlinale that took this first stride with an award given to director Pedro Almodóvar for his film Law of Desire (La ley del deseo).
Since then, everyone from Todd Haynes and François Ozon to Gus Van Sant and Céline Sciamma has received a Teddy win at the Berlinale. And it’s not just Competition films that are eligible. Any screening at the Berlinale can be considered across any category, which affirms precisely how diverse the Berlin Film Festival actually is in an organic, expansive way.
This year’s Berlinale is no different, and that’s why it’s been hard to pick just ten films to celebrate from the festival’s run in 2023. You’ll notice Passages, Mutt, and Kokomo City have been left out of our running below and that’s because we celebrated their world premieres at Sundance very recently right here.
So what other new Berlinale entries have the potential to become instant queer classics in 2023? Here are ten LGBTQ+ films from Berlin that you must keep an eye out for in wide release.