Festival director Bernd Buder is currently attending the Cannes Film Festival. Here are his impressions so far:
“The first few days of scouting in Cannes … alongside numerous meetings with distributors, film institutions, and producers, there are also some remarkable films to discover. In his competition entry FATHERLAND, Paweł Pawlikowski shows how cultural figures were already being pressured in 1949 to adopt a clear ‘position’—making it a highly topical film about Thomas Mann’s journey to divided Germany after World War II. Kosovo director Blerta Basholli processes her traumatic experiences as a teenager during the Kosovo War of the late 1990s in DUA, while Kantemir Balagov, who has been living in the United States since 2022, portrays a Circassian family in the diaspora in Newark in BUTTERFLY JAM—dynamic cinema with an Eastern European sensibility and a universal touch. Personal, gripping, and in very different ways thoughtfully entertaining.
While film stars and their works are celebrated—often enthusiastically—in cinemas and on the red carpet in Cannes, deals are being made behind the scenes at the Marché du Film: projects are developed, festival strategies are shaped, and hundreds of films are screened exclusively for industry professionals, all hoping for festival, television, and streaming premieres. And none of this happens hidden away, but right on the beaches of the Côte d’Azur: in Cannes, the industry goes big. Not at all modestly, the film market calls itself ‘the heart of the film industry,’ and here you truly meet everyone you might want to discuss future festival programs with. Accordingly, the ten days are packed with meetings with distribution and production companies and film institutions, networking events, panel discussions, and screenings—including many discoveries for the upcoming edition of FilmFestival Cottbus.
The supposedly legendary long party nights, however, are kept within limits—you’re back at your laptop at 7 a.m. the next morning to secure tickets for the coming days, and queuing for the first screening just before 8.”