The Queer Academy is a non-profit, private institute that serves as a queer cultural memory and archive for queer culture. It collects artefacts and representations of the queer culture to preserve it and make it accesible to the public. This way, the Queer Academy binds queer cultural creation, cooperates with other organisations on the whole globe and enables its members to collect, protect and live queer culture.
One of the pillars of the Queer Academy is the collection of more than 1000 films from all continents, that have been shown at the Berlinale in a queer kontext since the foundation of the Teddy Award. The Teddy Award has built an archive, where all films and supporting materials are collected. But this anthology of queer film history memories shows more than a cinematographic connection: it xonstitutes the global commemoration of queer emancipations movements of all participating countries.
This film archive is the biggest of its kind in the world. That is why it is essential to digitalize the collection and set up a platform to allow its members and users to partake in the improvement of the archive with new material. This digitalization of the materials does not just mean that they will be accesible for research and (film)historical work, but also that their existence, which is constantly under the threat of marginalisation in most countries, will be protected from disappearing.
With the Queer Academy, the queer history can be written for the first time to a global extent/on a global scale for the queer population. It is important that the memories saved by the Queer Academy should be used and kept alive. Only through active work on those memories is it possible for them not to stiffen, to be forgotten or limit themselves to single aspects.
Contact:
Elser Maxwell
E-Mail info@queeracademy.org
Phone: +49 30 264 80-531