TEDDY FOR PIETER-DIRK UYS

Pieter-Dirk Uys is to receive the Special TEDDY Award for outstanding lifetime achievements in Berlin this month.

In 2011, the TEDDY Awards will celebrate its 25th anniversary. This forms part of the annual Berlin International Film Festival and every year a unique individual is selected to be honoured with a Teddy Award for outstanding lifetime achievements.

More than 3,000 guests from the arts, culture, economic and political sectors will attend the festive Gala where the TEDDY Awards will be given to various recipients. Former winners include film-makers Pedro Almodovar, Gus van Sant and Derek Jarman, as well as acclaimed performers Helmut Berger, John Hurt and Tilda Swinton.

This year's Special TEDDY Award will be presented on February 18 and will go to the South African entertainer and HIV/AIDS activist Pieter-Dirk Uys, for his commitment to AIDS education at South African schools and for his on-stage alter ego Evita Bezuidenhout, the “Most Famous White Woman in South Africa”, as she was called by Nelson Mandela.

In 2008, the acclaimed documentary by Julian Shaw about his work Darling: the Pieter-Dirk Uys Story was presented with the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival, with Evita herself making a legendary appearance at the TEDDY Award Ceremony that is televised across Europe.

On February 20 at 16h00, Uys will also give one performance of his show Desperate First Ladies at the Jewish Museum in Berlin where his late mother’s piano is kept (reservierung@jmberlin.de). In this performance he celebrates his Jewish heritage, his Afrikaner legacy and his fantastic legs and he hopes to remind the audience that a patriot can also be someone who protects his country from its government.