‘The Kids Are All Right’ picks up Berlinale Teddy Award

Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right has picked up the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at the the Berlin film festival, the Berlinale. The award was conferred yesterday as the 12-day mega-festival drew to a close.

The Teddy Award is an independent award conferred upon the best gay-themed feature film in the Berlin film festival. There were more than fifty films in the running for this year’s award (of which, only three had a bisexual women’s or lesbian theme). The jury is composed of eight LGBT film festival programme directors from the around the world.

Announcing the winning flick, the jury said in a statement:

The Teddy for the Best Feature Film goes to Lisa Cholodenko‘s The Kids Are All Right for being a well-crafted and humorous take on the issues facing contemporary lesbian parents and the complexity of sexuality, relationships and family bonding.

Lisa Cholodenko also wrote and directed that heavyweight in the canon of lesbian cinema, High Art. The film’s leading ladies are Academy Award alumni, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore (On a side note, this is the third gay-themed release—A Single Man, Chloe—this year featuring Julianne Moore). The calibre of acting in those two names alone will pique the interest of any discerning filmgoer. The film itself tells the story of an unexpected family reunion an is set in the Los Angeles family home of Nic (Bening) and Jules (Moore) which they share with their teenage daughter, Joni, and son, Laser. Before Joni leaves home for college, Laser asks her for a favour: help him track down their biological father. Laser’s enthusiasm and Joni’s reluctant assistance lead to a new chapter opening in their family’s life when their biological father, Paul, (Mark Ruffalo) is brought home one day for dinner.

The Kids Are All Right has already proven to be a hit at the Sundance Festival and now the Berlinale. At the Sundance Film Festival, The Kids Are All Right was picked up by Focus Features for distribution to the USA, UK, Germany and South Africa. Here’s hoping that Ireland and other countries are added to that syndication list soon.

Click here and here to watch clips from the film.