The winners in 2022 have been announced!
These are the winners of the 11th edition of the QUEER-STREIFEN festival Regensburg:
Most popular feature film
The non-monetary Audience Award for the best feature film goes to:
POTATO DREAMS OF AMERICA
by Wes Hurley, USA, 2021
Early on, little Potato realizes that he is different. He doesn’t like naked women in magazines at all, and the communist system of his home country Vladivostok is not his cup of tea either. Because the single mother Lena, with her morally difficult job as a gulag doctor, also sees no future in the country, a decision is made: off to the USA, the land of unimagined possibilities! But even there, many things are not as they seem.
With a lot of love for the production and even more love for his characters, director Wes Hurley, who himself emigrated from Russia to the USA at the age of 16, tells of dreams, hopes and the desire for self-realization. In this sometimes thoughtful, sometimes cynical, but always highly entertaining film, even the Mother of God herself gets to belt out a few lines!
Audience Awards at € 200
per short film programme:
DEADNAME: SID
Anthony Pieck, Belgium, 2022
What Sid has done is so intolerable to his father that he asks Sid to have his last name changed to spare the family further disgrace. But what does the accused say to this?
PSYCHO BABY
Charlotte Kennett, USA, 2022
Contrary to what most people think, 99% of all “psychopaths” are not serial killers. Andra tries to form a relationship with Sadie, two women who couldn’t be more different.
NEUZEIT (Boom and Bloom)
Stefan Langthaler, Austria, 2022
Sweeping up the pieces of a failed relationship with a talkative but not exactly sensitive father on an Alpine hike? A tightrope act at dizzy heights!
QUEER-STREIFEN Jury Award (500 €):
The jury, consisting of Francy Fabritz, Kristóf Gellén and Pedro Álvarez Olañeta, awards the main prize 2022 to:
THE HOWLING
Bartosz Brzezinski, Poland, 2021
Statement of the jury:
A film that, through its style and use of many metaphors and symbols, manages to captivate the viewer from the very first second. The acting of the young actors makes us understand what it is like to grow up in dusty binary structures and to want to discover and live a different sexuality and love than the one recognised as “right” by the Eastern patriarchy. Away from it all, when our protagonists, imitating the liberating cry of the wolves, experience a little bit of freedom, one feels the hunch and possibility of freedom and discovery. All the more painful – also thanks to excellent writing and camerawork – is the end, which almost silently brings one back to reality and repeatedly asks the question: does it have to be like this? So lonely? So painful? So absolutely incomprehensible?
The Jury Prize of 500€ for the Best Short Film of the 11. QUEER-Streifen Film Festival Regensburg goes to THE HOWLING by Bartosz Brzezinski.
Congratulations!
Special mention
PÉRIPHERIE
Thibault Bru, Frankreich, 2021
PÉRIPHERIE is a perfect example of how well a short film can address controversial and poorly represented topics and people in just a few minutes. Age, pregnancy in old age, career as a woman, BPOC women in the workplace, the desire to have children and same-sex parenthood. In the smallest space in a car, the film concisely tells a relationship, a difficult situation and the power of communication. And all this with perfect craftsmanship.
PÉRIPHERIE by Thibault Bru receives a special mention from the jury.
