Every year in Pilsen: this year Bernd Buder, programme director of the FFC, is again at Finále Pilsen (22nd to 27th Sept), the largest national Czech film festival. He is one of the international experts who advise makers of new film projects as part of the "Czech Springboard". Five feature film ideas are presented and receive feedback from 21 invited experts - how can the plot be developed even better? For which audience is the project suitable? Where can they look for co-producers, what could a festival and marketing strategy look like? Among the experts is also Marjorie Bendeck, head of the co-production market connecting cottbus.
At Finále Pilsen, the FFC will once again present the annual "German Films" section - eight short and long feature films, including RAGE AT KUBA, shot in Cottbus, about a woman who has become a mother far too young and still dreams of other things, which will also run in the youth film competition at the FFC 2023. With GOLDILOCKS AND GLORIOUS LOSERS and THE BALLAD OF PIARGY two Slovak-Czech co-productions will be screened in Pilsen, which were shown in Cottbus last year, and with LUXEMBOURG LUXEMBOURG in the special section with Ukrainian film, last year's opening film.
Some Pilsen films will soon be screened in Cottbus: The retrofuturistic sci-fi thriller RESTORE POINT, which is already being called "the Czech Blade Runner"; the box-office hit THE ISLAND, set on an island in the Gulf of Thailand, about a falling-out couple who have to communicate anew with each other in a Robinson Crusoe setting; the children's film TONY, SHELLY AND THE MAGIC LIGHT, the slacker pre-end times scenario BRUTAL HEAT, in which people in the Czech province start behaving completely strangely because the earth has warmed up too much, and the Polish-Dutch-Czech co-production IMAGO about a female post-punk singer in late 1980s Poland. BRUTAL HEAT will be shown in Cottbus in the youth film competition, Olga Chajdas' IMAGO in the feature film competition.