TEDDY Talents Talks

In this fourth edition of the Teddy Talents Talks, a joint venture of the TEDDY AWARD, Queer Academy and Berlinale Talents, we invite four film professionals to reflect on the conceptual power of the queer form. How does queer cinema and us as creators, navigate the tension between ambiguity and transgression? Does that, what defies categorization, open the door to radical insight and play with this very disorientation to create new forms? By queering cinematic form, tracing new trajectories through heteronormative lines, perhaps we uncover a kind of brilliance that only emerges from the margins?

Djamila Grandits is a Vienna-based curator and film programmer. Part of CineCollective and D—Arts. Currently working on the pre-selection committee of Berlinale Panorama. Former member of the non-fiction commission of Zürcher Filmstiftung. Previously programmed with Diagonale, DOK Leipzig, Kasseler Dokfest, sixpackfilm, frameout and tricky women - tricky realities. Her practice is grounded in care and curiosity for moving image practices, collective and speculative curatorial movements.

Daniela Vega is a Chilean actress, operatic singer, writer, and producer. Her leading role in A Fantastic Woman (2017) brought her international recognition, with the film becoming the first Chilean production to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. She also made history as the first transgender woman to present at the Academy Awards. In 2018, Time magazine included her in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Daniela has worked across Spanish-, English-, and Italian-language productions, with notable roles in the series Tales of the City (USA), The Power (UK), La Jauría (Chile), Once Upon a Time… Happily Never After (Spain), and La Rebelión (Mexico). Her film work includes Technoboys (Mexico), Futura (Italy), La Visita, and Run Over (Chile). She has also worked as a producer and was part of the documentary Peace, Peace, Now, Now.

She is the author of Rebeldía, resistencia y amor (Planeta Publishing) and is currently preparing her next book.

Daniela has received multiple Best Actress awards, including the 2018 Platino Awards (Mexico), the Palm Springs International Film Festival (USA), and the Havana International Festival of New Latin American Cinema (Cuba), among others.

Sarnt Utamachote is a Southeast Asian nonbinary filmmaker and curator based in Berlin. Their works span researches in migration, communities, archives, and notions of queerness, shifting between mediums of cinema, visual arts, and writing. They are part of collectives such as un.thai.tled and Cruising Curators. Their ongoing exhibition In Nobody’s Service took place at Galerie Wedding Berlin (2024), Thailand Biennale in Phuket (2025), and Goethe-Institut Southeast Asia's Dealing In Distance (2026). Their short film I don’t want to be just a memory (2022–24) had its premiere at 74th Berlinale Forum Expanded. With Sinema Transtopia, they have been curating film programs, such as "The past is not another country" (in collaboration with German Film Museum Frankfurt), which looks as alternative ways to deal with film archives. They work as film programmer for XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin, Short Film Festival Hamburg, and is guest programmer for CinemAsia Amsterdam 2026. They have served as jury for Fantouche, MIXCPH, London Short Film Festival, and more. Currently they are a fellow resident at Braunschweig Projects of HBK (2026-27).

Fallon Mayanja is a sound artist, composer and performer whose practice engages voice, electronic music and speculative narration. A graduate of the Lisbon School of Fine Arts with a Post-Diploma in Sound Arts and a Master’s degree from INA GRM, Fallon’s practice is rooted in live performance. Their work explores listening as a political and relational practice, where sound, technology and environment operate interconnected mediums of exchange. Alongside their artistic practice, Fallon develops pedagogical projects focused on voice, listening, sonic ritual and electronic improvisation.

@fallon_mayanja

Open event for 200 people, tickets available for purchase and contingent for accredited professions