The TEDDY emerged from an intimate gathering of queer film festival workers at the Prinz Eisenherz bookshop, long before it became a defining presence within the Berlinale. To revisit those origins – and to understand how the award has helped queer Berlin’s cultural landscape, from the dance floors of SchwuZ and SO36 to the Metropol and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt – we speak with the people who were there at the inception, as well as those who have shaped the era of New Queer Cinema. The award’s formative years unfolded against a backdrop of political urgency: queer‑hostile legislation in West Berlin, the height of the AIDS crisis and the looming collapse of the Berlin Wall. Within this charged atmosphere, the TEDDY became more than an award; it became a cultural intervention. What did it mean for queer activists and filmmakers to see such a force – defiant, communal and unapologetically political – take root within the DNA of the Berlinale itself?