Facts:
- Section >Focus "Eastern Europeby Cities"
- international comparison of urban life
- circa 30 Films
- Member of the International Jury, Aida Begic, presents own film
- curated by Programme Director Bernd Buder und Author Barbara Wurm


The city. For many a place of potentialities and liberties - others
associate life in the city foremost with location-specific challenges: One
the one side, migration from the land and escape from the pressure to
conform, on the other, the emergence of social trouble spots,
gentrification and the dominance of historical and modern, representational
architecture. The urban living environment, both a free space and a symbol
of growing competitive pressure, is as multifaceted and complex as its
inhabitants; it is different everywhere, but as a phenomenon and
agglomeration comparable across national borders. The >Focus<  of the 25th
FilmFestival Cottbus with its motto "Eastern Europe by the Cities"
therefore strikes a global chord without, however, losing sight of its
concentration on Eastern Europe. The approximately 30 film contributions to
the >Focus section wre curated by Programme Director Bernd Buder and the
lecturer, author and curator Barbara Wurm and give insights into familiar
and less familiar urban spheres of Eastern Europe.

Moscow: The socialist promises of the past have been replaced by the
unregulated rule of money; moral and social differences strikingly shape
both the cityscape and its inhabitants. This becomes evident in Anna
Melikjan's STAR (Russia 2014), whose female protagonist makes all sorts of
sacrifices for her ambition to become famous, and also in AWAY FROM ALL
SUNS (Isa Willinger | Germany 2013) that gives an account of the sell-out of
the city's architectural heritage.
The omnibus film WARSAW STORIES (Maciej Cuske et al. | Poland 2014) casts a
view to the Polish capital, presenting dystopic visions of alienation and
isolation in the allegedly fastest growing city in Europe, while WARSAW
FRANKENSTEIN (Christiane Büchner | Germany, Poland 2012) treads less
familiar paths to the suburban centres and gated communities.

The streets of Sarajevo bear the historical legacy of several wars and the
myth of having repeatedly defended the spirit of urbanity against seemingly
overpowering occupiers. Thus, the city has a lot to tell, as do its
inhabitants: In ALBUM (France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Italy,
Portugal, Germany 2014), an episode of the omnibus film BRIDGES OF
SARAJEVO, Aida Begic, the Bosnian director and member of this year's
International Jury, shows the scars that the war has left behind in the
city and its population, and how the war continues to have an impact 20
years later. In her feature film debut OUR EVERYDAY LIFE (Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia 2015), Ines Tanovic takes a look at the
everyday life of a middle-class family in Sarajevo, whose mental state is
tangibly shaped by the horrors of the war and the rapid change of values in
these days. Jasmila Zbanic offers a succinct observation of the culture of
remembrance in the Bosnian capital in her film ONE DAY IN SARAJEVO (Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Croatia 2015): The official commemoration of the 100th
anniversary of the murder of the Austro-Hungarian heir apparent Franz
Ferdinand, which led to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, brings
crowds of political tourists of all colours to the streets - each with
their own view of the events that took place on 28 June, 1914.

What happens to the city in a country that is currently undergoing radical
change? - Inna Denisova, who was born in Simferopol, the largest city on
the Crimean peninsula, searches for traces of her homeland in BACK HOME
(Russia 2015), where she encounters euphoria, but also regret in the face
of stagnating tourism and a rapid change in values. Several other personal
views are offered in the short film series MY STREET FILMS (Kseniya
Krasnova et al. | Ukraine 2014), produced upon the initiative of the "86" -
Festival of Film and Urbanism in Slavutych: The call was made to Show us
your street, your neighbourhood, your town!, and the result consists in
films vacillating between video selfies and conceptual art that portray the
daily life and lifestyle in six Ukrainian cities - from Kiev to Kramatorsk.

Two projects address places in Eastern Europe rarely portrayed in cinema:
In the omnibus film URBAN MOTIVES 4.1 (Jafar Akhundzadeh et al. | Azerbaijan
2015), which will have its international premiere in Cottbus, five young
directors take a look at the Azerbaijan capital of Baku, literally from
different perspectives - from a balcony, a crane and a car, into the
underground and up in the bright world above. BALKAN ONIONS (Irene Izqierdo
et al. | Kosovo, Germany 2015), an initiative of the association RomaTrial
e.V., the filmArche and the Dokufest in Prizren, builds a bridge between
Berlin and Prizren, the second largest city in Kosovo: Young filmmakers and
film enthusiasts produced five short films with non-professional actors and
directors from the local Roma community - all conveying authentic
reflections on everyday life.

In co-operation with the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, the festival presents
keynote speeches by experts from the chair of urban planning and spatial
design that provide a professional context to the filmic themes.

The festival is substantially supported by the State of Brandenburg, the
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the City of Cottbus as well as the MEDIA -
Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

Save the date: The press conferences of the 25th FilmFestival Cottbus will
be held on 15 October in Berlin and Cottbus.