Eastern Europe as a Multifaceted and Contradictory Concept
At first glance, it seems almost impossible to find a common denominator for the ten films shown in competition this year. No two films were alike. Magical realism met historical fantasy, true stories met bitter satire. Eastern Europe, as reflected here, is a multifaceted and contradictory concept. It is best to keep the definition open. The past of “real existing socialism” is only one of several common points of reference.
But as different as the films were, there was one striking similarity: none of them was set in the present. From Hungary in the 1930s to Slovenia in the early 1980s, Poland and Bulgaria in the 1990s, Czechia in 2001, and an undefined future after the war in Ukraine, a wide variety of eras were illuminated, but current references were omitted. No reference to Trump or the far-right politics on the rise anywhere.
This is particularly noteworthy given that Cottbus primarily invites young filmmakers with their debut or second or third films. Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovych stands out almost as a veteran. He already attracted attention in 2019 with his film Atlantis (Atlantyda), in which he imagined the post-apocalyptic consequences of a war with Russia. At the time, it seemed far-fetched. The near future he unfolds this time in To the Victory! (Za peremohu!) seems more everyday. In scenic vignettes, he tells the story of a filmmaker who is concerned about Ukraine’s post-war future, self-deprecating but also emphatically melancholic.
Just a few years ago, Eastern European films were characterized by their pessimistic view of the present and the past. In the meantime, a lighter tone has found its way into the genre. The Slovenian contribution Ida Who Sang So Badly Even the Dead Rose Up and Joined Her in Song (Ida, ki je pela tako grdo, da so še mrtvi vstali od metvih in zapeli z njo) by Ester Ivakič depicts childhood in the early 1980s in the countryside with restrained humor. The Czech film Summer School, 2001 (Letní škola, 2001) by Dužan Duong also told its story with a wink – and focused on family conflicts in the Czech-Vietnamese community, a topic that had previously been neglected. The Hungarian film Mayflies (Pipás) by Emilia Goldberg was a melodrama that, despite the serious subject matter of a murderer sentenced to death and her forbidden love for a Protestant pastor’s daughter, ended on a hopeful note.
The Polish film Wrooklyn Zoo, in which director Krzysztof Skonieczny depicts the “baseball bat years” in Wroclaw in the 1990s, was also permeated by hope for a belated reconciliation. Its hero is a young skater who has to defend himself and his friends against right-wing gangs and, along the way, falls in love with a Romani woman. The film is a wild mixture of Romeo and Juliet, breakdancing, and Romani mysticism with a touch of Kusturica, and impresses with the ambition with which it incorporates the complicated heritage of Wroclaw into its script, as a former German city whose Jewish citizens were murdered and which took in refugees from western Ukraine after the war.
Our Father (Oče naš) by Serbian filmmaker Goran Stanković (awarded Best Director), on the other hand, captivated with its straightforwardness and realism. Based on a true incident from the 2000s, Stanković tells the story of a remote farm where a strict Orthodox priest offers detox therapy for addicts. His regime is so violent that it leads to allegations of abuse. The helplessness with which the film leaves its heroes at the end has an optimistic note: at least the violence has come to an end.
As the big winner of the festival, awarded with several prizes, emerged Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day (Lijepa večer, lijep dan). In it, Croatian filmmaker Ivona Juka recounts Yugoslavian history from a queer perspective. Her heroes are four gay men who distinguished themselves as patriots in the partisan war and worked as rebellious intellectuals in the film industry in the 1950s until they were slandered and suffered terrible things in prison camps. Juka’s film, more a historical fantasy than real history, emphasizes the physical elements of the story, the gay sex as well as later the cruel torture. But it is precisely in this insistence on pleasure and pain that the film’s liberating power lies.
Barbara Schweizerhof
©FIPRESCI 2025