The FilmFestival Cottbus (November 5-10, 2019) announces the first six of twelve films of the FEATURE FILM COMPETITION.
FULL MOON, the feature film debut of Bosnian director Nermin Hamzagić, celebrates its world premiere in Cottbus. People under pressure, angry citizens on adrenaline who have had enough and revolt - lone warriors of all ages against conventions and gentrification, corruption and right-wing networks, their own family and the strong state. And at the same time always a bit against itself.

"In 2019, the work of many young directors will shape the competition of the FilmFestival Cottbus. They approach their themes directly, sometimes just as directly as their protagonists, who defend themselves against the stress that weighs on them," says Bernd Buder, programme director of the FilmFestival Cottbus. "Between political thrillers and ironic undertones, biographies of people, who pressing very strongly for justice, appear on the screen. But there are many sides to it, and so it is not enough just to be against something. Eastern European cinema remains true to its tradition of taking a particularly close look behind the scenes, negotiating contradictions and changing pitch quickly at the same time."

The young Bosnian director Nermin Hamzagić stages his feature film debut FULL MOON (BA), which celebrates its world premiere at the 29th FFC, with great attention to detail. His hero: the young policeman Hamza. The usual cases are waiting for him at the police station. While his colleagues usually solve them with bribes, Hamza decides to leave the corrupt circle.

With the German premiere of NATIONAL STREET (CZ, DE) Štepán Altrichter returns to Cottbus. Altrichter's second feature film, based on the book of the same name by Jaroslav Rudiš, is a lightly staged and apt mental study of sensitivities in the thirtieth year after the fall of the Iron Curtain. His protagonist, the hooligan and angry citizen Vandam, lives in a prefabricated housing estate on the outskirts of Prague. Here he spent his childhood, here he is at home. When his favourite pub falls victim to gentrification, he has to act. The FFC awarded Altrichter's SCHMITKE 2014 as Best Debut.

Teodor Kuhn's feature film debut BY A SHARP KNIFE (SK, CZ) is inspired by a murder in 2005 that is still unsolved today. In this exciting political thriller, a father who wants justice for his son stabbed to death by neo-Nazis gets lost in an unequal battle with the opaque judicial system. He encounters a web of disinterest, procedural errors and Mafia entanglements.

In the centre of Ognjen Sviličićs fourth feature film THE VOICE (HR, RS, MK) is 17-year-old Goran. In his boarding school, a Catholic grammar school in the Dalmatian hinterland, he becomes an outsider because he is not a believer. Under the Mediterranean sun, a vicious circle of pressure to adapt and defiance develops, turning Goran's frustration into anger against others and against himself.

The women's portrait SISTER (BG, QA), the second feature film by Svetla Tsotsorkova, captivates with an impressive visual language. To escape her boring everyday life, the young Rayna tells passing tourists that her family has been brutally murdered by the Mafia and other adventurous fairy tales of lies. Until her big sister's boyfriend is locked up. Rayna hurries to help him and learns a lot about her mother, which better would have been undiscovered.

In LOVE CUTS (RS, HR), Kosta Đorđevićs second feature film, teenager Aja rages her way through the congenially staged cityscapes of Belgrade. Her mother is annoying, her boyfriend is no longer in the mood for her, they scream at each other, they part. Aggression is in the air. The fast-paced and authentically staged low-budget production is carried above all by the impressive leading actress Kristina Jovanović.

The FFC awaits the directors of the nominated works as guests.

Title List Feature Film Competition
English Title | Original Title

BY A SHARP KNIFE | OSTRÝM NOŽOM
Teodor Kuhn, SK/CZ 2019, 90 MIN

FULL MOON | PUN MJESEC
Nermin Hamzagić, BA 2019, 79 MIN

LOVE CUTS | REŽI
Kosta Đorđević, RS/HR 2019, 80 MIN

NATIONAL STREET | NÁRODNÍ TŘÍDA
Štepán Altrichter, CZ/DE 2019, 90 MIN

SISTER| SESTRA
Svetla Tsotsorkova, BG/QA 2019, 98 MIN

THE VOICE | GLAS
Ognjen Sviličić, HR/RS/MK 2019, 76 MIN

On September 15, the Batumi International Art-House Film Festival (BIAFF) will begin in Georgia. For 14 years, the festival in the Black Sea city of Batumi has offered the public the opportunity to see the latest international arthouse productions. In the three competitions - Feature Film, Documentary Film and Short Film - which characterize the festival, nine prizes are awarded. BIAFF will be showing a total of almost 70 films on eight days.

As part of the festival, film journalists from the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia will come together for a four-day workshop. Under the title "Social discourse through film journalism", participants from all areas of the media will be sensitised to the example of reference films from the film programme for differentiated reporting on films that transport and discuss civil society values. Under the direction of Vladan Petković (film critic, journalist, curator, translator) and Jörg Taszman (film journalist, curator and consultant of the FFC), they will be made aware of possibilities to accompany and promote civil society processes through film analysis or with the help of analytical articles and contributions on filmic trends.

The workshop is a cooperation of the FilmFestival Cottbus with the Batumi International Art House Film Festival and will be continued in November at the 29th FFC.

The series of events is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.

14/09/2019

The stories told by the film makers in their entries for the Feature Film Competition are just as diverse as the stories and cultures in Eastern Europe: regional and universal, empathetic and abstract, analytical and gripping.Twelve films from altogether 16 co-production countries: the Feature Film Competition of the 27th FilmFestival Cottbus (FFC) once again reflects the best traditions of Eastern European film by demonstrating diversity and refusing to be reduced to a common theme. The films provide the FFC audience with the opportunity to closely observe and decipher people in a mix ranging from thriller and social drama to laconic case study and epic cinema.

The competition entries have been brought to the screen by old masters such as FilmFestival Cottbus regular Jan Cvitkovič with his film THE BASICS OF KILLING as well as newcomers such as the young Russian independent director Vitaly Suslin with HEAD. TWO EARS. The films focus on protagonists who very realistically find themselves caught up in contradictions. Such as the ex-president who in George Ovashvili’s KHIBULA has to flee from his people even in spite of having had the best of intentions. Or the tabloid journalist in BREAKING NEWS who runs away from being responsible for the death of his colleague. They all are broken heroes whose fates tell tales that are exemplary of life beyond the usual scope of media attention. BLACK LEVEL follows the life of a photographer caught in a midlife crisis, not wanting to grow older; WILD ROSES tells of a young mother in a rural backwater who feels equally detached from her husband and her own children. OUT, a road movie with a wicked sense of humour, depicts a jobless man’s journey into the unknown who fails to find happiness even while away on a construction job in the far north. In OMNIPRESENT, an advertising designer stranded in competitive society develops an obsessive control disorder in attempting to dominate his environment through CCTV.

“The heroes of Eastern European film have never been good or bad, they have always been both at the same time”, explains Programme Director Bernd Buder. “People under pressure, caught in the moral dilemma between the urge to survive and self-criticism, career and solidarity. Characters who often are depicted with a tendency towards irony. Here, every truth hides a lie and vice versa.” THE LINE features a human trafficker with a heart, I’M A KILLER a policeman as an executioner and DAYBREAK a single mother as a killer. In the family drama THE POMEGRANATE ORCHARD a son deceives his family.

The International Festival Jury is tasked with choosing from these twelve entries the winners of the following four awards: Main Prize for Best Film, endowed with EUR 25,000 donated by the Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrechten (GWFF); Special Prize for Best Director, endowed with EUR 7,500 donated by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg; Special Prizes for Outstanding Actress and Outstanding Actor, each endowed with EUR 5,000 donated by the City of Cottbus and Sparkasse Spree-Neiße, respectively.

These are the members of the International Festival Jury...

With its U18 Youth Film Competition, the 27th FilmFestival Cottbus (FFC) explores the lives of young people in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Nine feature and medium-length films from Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic will compete in the U18 Youth Film Competition of the 27th FFC (7 to 12 November 2017) for the prize for Best Youth Film endowed with EUR 3,000 bestowed by Lausitz Energie Kraftwerke AG (LEAG). As in previous years, the prize will be awarded by a tri-national jury of pupils from the 5th Lyceum Zielona Góra, the Gymnazium Teplice and, for the first time, the Humboldt-Gymnasium in Cottbus. “This year’s U18 Youth Film Competition is an inspiration with its enormous variety. It addresses big issues such as family, self-determination, digital worlds and, of course, the exciting adventure of love”, says U18 curator Jarek Godlewski. “The films are fast-paced, entertaining, artistic and at times a little thrilling – an enthralling programme for teenagers and young adults alike.”

From junkie to iron man: the Polish director Łukasz Palkowski tells the true story of Jerzy Górski in BREAKING THE LIMITS. At a young age, Jerzy consumes hard drugs with his clique. When many of his friends die as a result of overdosing, he decides to fight against his addition by keenly pursuing athletic goals. A gripping biopic that recently won three awards at the renowned Polish film festival Gdynia. Another recent award winner is LOMO – THE LANGUAGE OF MANY OTHERS by Julia Langhof. Main actor Jonas Dassler won the Götz George Award for Emerging Talents at First Steps. He plays Karl, who is fed up with satisfying the wishes of his ambitious parents and therefore regularly ‘feeds’ his blog by mercilessly posting his unfiltered experiences. A gripping drama that innovatively explores the world of digital natives in their search for meaning. MONTENEGRO by Petr Kubík likewise gathers pace by virtue of the internet: this is where the young Czechs Tomaš und Adam arrange to undertake an off-road Jeep tour through Montenegro with two young Serbian women. A charming road movie with strong cars, stunning landscapes, plenty of jealousy and the spirit of summer.

The U18 Youth Film Competition is supported by Lausitz Energie Kraftwerke AG (LEAG) and the Brandenburg State Ministry of Science, Research and Culture (MWFK). “The FilmFestival Cottbus’s U18 Youth Film Competition and the tri-national student meeting add to exchange within the border triangle on a very special level”, says Dr Martina Münch from the MWFK. “The youths from Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany meet in Cottbus on a cinematic and a personal level and in doing so discover connectedness, yet perhaps also differences in their lives, which in turn initiates dialogue. I am delighted that this competition forms part of the festival. Europe needs such formats that promote mutual understanding and the engagement with a wide range of different cultures. This is particularly important for our young generation, as it is they who will shape the vision of Europe.”

The 27th FilmFestival Cottbus (7 to 12 November) dedicates its section FOCUS Việt Nam ở châu Âu | Vietnam in Europe to the migration history of Vietnamese contract workers and their succeeding generations in Central Europe.

“The story of former Vietnamese contract workers and their children and grandchildren in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic reflects several ambivalences of European migration history: they were invited as a workforce, remained as human beings, were threatened with deportation and confronted with racism”, outlines Programme Director Bernd Buder their lives in Germany. “The programme’s range of films poignantly and often ironically highlights aspects of migration history and explores various Vietnamese-European identities.”

15 films from Vietnam, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and the former GDR investigate the emotional state between xenophobic resentments, patriarchal family tradition and self-liberation, the fear of deportation and painstakingly won social acknowledgement in a personal and accentuated approach. The films are essayistic and documentary, touching, analytical and ironic and they offer genre appeal. The short film MEINE ERLEBNISSE/MY EXPERIENCES (GDR, 1962) is a historically fascinating homage, documenting the ideals of the immediate post-war periode.
Also part of the programme is the only co-production between the GDR and Vietnam: DSCHUNGELZEIT/TIME IN THE JUNGLE from 1988 was the first foreign feature film that was entirely shot in Vietnam. Director Jörg Foth is a guest at the 27th FFC and will talk about his experiences in shooting this film.
Director Đức Ngô Ngọc, who trained at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, follows the lives of the inhabitants of a floating village in Vietnam in his documentary film FAREWELL HALONG.
Two budding directors of Vietnamese origin studying at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague reflect on the younger generation’s dwindling links to their parents’ roots and on life between two homelands in the short film MAT GOC and the animated film MALÁ/THE LITTLE ONE.

Bernd Buder, programme director of the FilmFestival Cottbus, joins the documentary film jury at this year's Szczecin European Film Festival in the Northern Polish town of Szcecin. The festival is well-known for a carefully curated program that focuses on short films that expand the artistic boundaries of their genres in various ways. In addition to artistic documentary films and regional films from West Pomerania, series with new German and Czech films and numerous special events are on the programme. The documentary jury awards five awards among the 26 films of the competition, including prices for the most innovative and the most moving film.

Further information at the festival-website.

FilmFestival Cottbus cooperates again with polish filmfestival Solanin, located in Nowa Sól. The 9th issue of the Off-Festival focuses on Indieproductions from Poland, Europa and the whole world.

FilmFestival Cottbus presents three movies at the festival, e.g. "MĚR" from Anne-Kathrin Rensch and Clemens Schiesko, which won 2015 a special prize at 13th FilmSchau Cottbus.