Out of the approximately 15 feature films in the festival a selection is competing for the award for best feature, chosen by an international jury of three people. The award is endowed with a €500 cash price, sponsored by Erotik.com
Gustavo Vinagre
Gustavo Vinagre is a writer, director and producer, born in 1985. He studied literature at University of São Paulo, and cinema at the EICTV, Cuba.
Vinagre directed 14 short-films and 6 features, amongst them “The blue flower of Novalis” and “Divinely evil”, both premiered at the Berlinale Forum. His latest film “Three tidy tigers tied a tie tigher” won the Teddy Award for Best Film at the Berlinale 2022. Vinagre also won best film twice at the Berlin Porn Film Festival – with “Nova Dubai” in 2015 and in 2022 with “Unlearning to sleep”.
Gustavo Vinagre became a DAAD fellow in April 2023, with a 6 months residency in Berlin.
Sarnt Utamachote
Sarnt Utamachote (they/them) is a Southeast Asian nonbinary filmmaker and curator based in Berlin. They believe that cinema can be a tool for social engagement and collective healing. They are a cofounder of un.thai.tled, an artist collective from the German-Thai diaspora, and curated some research-based exhibitions regarding postcolonial histories, Southeast Asian diaspora and activism in the divided Germany (GDR / BRD).
They work as programmer/selection committee at XPOSED Queer Film Festival and Short Film Festival Hamburg and as curator at Sinema Transtopia Berlin. They collaborated with various institutions across Germany and Europe such as Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum Cologne, Musem of visual arts Leipzig, and more.
Isabelle Stever
1994 Stever graduated from the Technical University Berlin with a diploma in mathematics. In the same year she began a course in film direction at the DFFB (German Film and Television Academy Berlin). Her graduation film “Portrait of a Married Couple” was awarded, et al, the First Steps prize 2002 for new directing talent as best feature film. Her debut film “Gisela” had its world premiere at the 2005 Locarno Int. Film Festival and won Austria’s “Crossing Europe Award”, among others.
In 2009 Stever contributed a short film to an omnibus film that brought together what the
news magazine “Der Spiegel” described as Germany’s “directorial elite”, the film GERMANY 09 premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2010 followed the feature film BLESSED EVENTS, which was highly appreciated by critics and had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Stevers feature film THE WEATHER INSIDE has been shown i.a. at the Busan Int. Filmfestival, was awarded with two prizes at the 2morrow Int. Filmfestival Moscow, “Best Screenplay” and “Best Performance”.
Her recent latest feature GRAND JETÉ, premiered 2022 at the Berlin Int. Filmfestival, appreciated by top critics, distributed to several countries, including US, Canada, Japan, South Korea. Stever’s films are in the collection of Filmgalerie 451.
Isabelle Stever lives in Berlin. 2021 she’s been honored with a residence fellowship at Villa Aurora, Los Angeles.