The Heart of Eastern European Cinema

“The Heart of Eastern European Cinema” – that was the main slogan of the annual film meeting taking place in the German city of Cottbus. It is one of the leading international film festivals that focuses on Central and Eastern European cinema. The Cottbus Festival is part of the MIOB (Moving Images – Open Borders) association, where there are six similar festivals (Linz, Seville, Palic, Les Arcs, Scanorama and Trieste), which cooperate mainly in the program part and their main focus is the independence of cinema, cultural exchange and support for active creators. This year’s Cottbus Film Festival screened 138 films from 41 countries, so there was plenty to choose from. Various types of film education took place, such as workshops, master classes, meetings at schools, panel discussions and, of course, discussions with creators after the screened films, which were very popular. The course of the festival resembled a large club meeting of those interested in film, regardless of age. Diversity, dialogue and passion for film expressed the mission of the festival. Neither the creators nor the journalists present at the festival were negligible. Their mutual and public discussions were beneficial for all participants.

As per tradition, attention was paid to the sections of short and feature-length works and films for youth, which were evaluated by an International Youth Jury. It was in this section that Slovaks had three lights – two films with a minority co-production with the Czech Republic Broken Voices (Sbormistř, dir. O. Provazník, 2025) Caravan (Karaván, dir. Z. Kirchnerová, 2025) and the winning Slovak film with a minority Czech co-production Promise, I’ll Be Fine (Hore je nebo, v doline som ja, dir. K. Gramatová, 2024), which received the Debut Award. Of the many sections, in addition to the three already mentioned, let us mention at least some that expressed the broad spectrum of the program. In the Hits section, Slovaks were represented by two films by J. Kroner, Miki (2024) and Černák (2025). The film Free the Chickens (2024) directed by M. Vizár represented us in the EcoEast section. The richest was the Spectrum section, which lived up to its name with 25 films from different countries, with different poetics and different creative processes, including the interesting program Transylvanian Shorts (5 short documentaries from Romania, from the land of Dracula) and the Ukrainian documentary Memorial (dir. T. Krugovykh, V. Bogatov, 2025).

Each year at the FF in Cottbus, the Close-Up… program presented the cinematography of one of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. This year it was Estonia with its extremely interesting films, which were largely unknown even to film enthusiasts. At the end of the screening, an open discussion was held, led, like the entire national section, by our colleague from the FIPRESCI jury Andrei Liimets. There was also Ukraina Day, and in the Spotlight: Weimarer Dreieck section, Polish cinematography was presented by big names such as A. Wajda, K. Kieślowski, A. Holland and others. The festival took place in the center of Lower Lusatia in the town of Chóśebuz, which are the Lusatian names for Cottbus. Both parts of Lusatia have their own rich culture, including cinematography. One of the founders of Lusatian-Sorbian cinematography during the GDR era was the friend of Slovaks, organizer and creator of documentary films Toni Bruk (1947 – 2020), who has his followers who presented themselves in the Homeland/Domoenja/Domizna program. Curator Daniel Kubik selected Łużyca Shorts I and II into two parts as 25 documentary films depict the contemporary Lusatian story. The profile of the interesting creator R. Pernacek, a filmmaker with Lower Serbian roots who grew up in Berlin and has long been dedicated to topics such as identity, origin and social change in Lusatia, attracted many people interested in both specific components of Lusatian culture. The Lusatian-Serbian Foundation awarded him the Prize for Promoting Serbian Community.

The festival was officially opened by the Slovak film Duchoň (dir. P. Bebjak, 2025). After its screening, the audience’s long-lasting applause pointed out not only the importance of the topic and its film processing, but also the many historical connections and similar situations in the socialist countries of the time. The festival’s program director Bernd Buder justified the choice of the work by saying that the film captured the time in modern film language and at the same time pointed out the fact that a significant talent can “breakthrough”. Unfortunately, often at the cost of concessions. This dilemma hung over every filmmaker in the socialist camp – as the system at the time was often called. There were ten feature films in the main competition and the five-member international main jury awarded the main prize to the film Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day (2024), an international co-production led by director Ivona Juvka. It is a story from 1957, from Yugoslavia, about filmmakers working in a film studio, with all the contradictory circumstances of the time of Marshal Tito. The main characters were gay, which was considered an anti-social phenomenon at the time. The long takes of explicit sexuality disturbed the film’s statement, but the film nevertheless received the Audience Award. The Special Award for Best Director went to Serbian filmmaker Goran Stankovič for his film Our Father (2025). Actor Emir Hadžihafizbegović won the Award for Outstanding Individual Performance for his film Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day. The jury was impressed by the performance, which was “brave in its uncertainty, powerful in its statement and unforgettable in its authenticity”. All three awardees also received the festival’s prestigious glass trophy, the Lubina.

In the short film competition, the main prize went to the Polish film People Things (2024) by director D. Kosowski. The Polish production was, in the words of the jury, “a metaphorical slap in the face – a very powerful and deeply moving depiction of what reality could be like”. The Special Award for Best Director was awarded to Romanian filmmaker C. Mitcu for his film Love is in the Air (2025), which was praised for “outstanding acting and an extraordinary sense of timing and subtlety”. Of course, the award was also given by the Ecumenical Jury – to the film Signis and Interfilm-Mayflies (dir. E. Goldberg, Hungary, 2025) and the FIPRESCI Jury, of which I was a member, together with the German critic Barbara Schweizerhof and the aforementioned Estonian journalist Andrei Liimets. The award went to the Polish film Wrooklyn ZOO (dir. K. Skonieczny, 2024) “For combining the punk energy and anti-authoritarianism of “skate culture” with the mysticism of Romani folklore and a timeless Shakespearean love story. The film is youthful, playful, creative and without borders, both in terms of cultural influences and fresh realization. It goes through a problematic past and speaks about the division of the present and provides much-needed signals for a better future.” What more can I say? Simply: The 35th Cottbus Film Festival was a great success.

Ladislav Volko
Edited by Savina Petkova
©FIPRESCI 2025