Berlin screen sensations.

GAYS ARE GETTING political again--and we ain't just talking same-sex marriage rights. February's Berlin film festival hosted the Teddys, an awards section for gay-themed films, which brimmed with politically charged works by queer filmmakers confronting issues as varied as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Walk on Water), gay black history (Brother to Brother), homophobic laws (Proteus), and transgendered athletes (Beautiful Boxer).

The gay films are quite radical," noted Teddy cofounder Wieland Speck. "After quite a few years of [almost] everyone trying to be compatible with what they thought the market would want, which turned out an overload of 'product' the market couldn't accommodate, you have filmmakers quick to go back to the real auteur-type thing without that concern of what will fit on a shelf."

To wit, Bruce La Bruce's art-meets-porno feature, Raspberry Reich, satirized "radical chic." Todd Verow kept the (bodily) juices flowing in his disturbing Anonymous. Miguel Albaladejo's Bear Cub (Cachorro) interspersed steamy sex scenes within its tale of a gay bear fighting for custody of his young nephew. An drew Horn's Teddy-winning documentary, The Nomi Song, celebrated the short career of New Wave icon Klaus Nomi, and Sebastien Lifshitz's Teddy feature winner, Wild Side, intimately portrayed an unconventional three-way relationship involving an Arab hustler, a Russian immigrant, and a transsexual woman.

Meanwhile, American films delivered, with Charlize Theron winning a Best Actress Silver Bear for her Monster-ous turn, while Angela Robinson snagged the Siegessaule magazine readers' prize for the audience-pleasing D.E.B.S.