Within the festival's "Russkiy Den" members of the "Russian Round Table" have agreed to bring forward a
German-Russian film agreement in cooperation with the ambassador of the Russian Federation in Germany,
Vladimir Kotenev. First steps have been initiated already: Ambassador Kotenev announced a meeting
of the Russian film industry in Moscow for November 18th 2009 to further promote the agreement.
During the meeting in Cottbus participants emphasized the festival's remarkable role concerning German-
Russian film cooperations. Kirsten Niehuus, managing director of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg declares:
"Cottbus has become the key element of German-Russian film cooperations." Ambassador Kotenev especially
thanked the organisators for establishing the "Russkiy Den". Andrey Plakhov, the well-known
Russian film critic and FIPRESCI-president, also emphasized the extraordinary effect of the festival: "Film-
Festival Cottbus plays a very positive role in German-Russian relations, especially since the Berlinale hardly
is a platform for Russian cinema."
This assessment is supported by the fact that the "Friends of the German-Russian film academy" association
based in Cottbus has been recently registered, as Bernd Schiphorst, its initiator and at the same time
president of the FilmFestival's curatorship stated. According to Schiphorst the Friends' association was
supposed to lead to the founding of an academy with the main task of developing and funding joint film
projects.
Among the guests of the "Russian Round Table" were also Manfred Schmidt, president of the Mitteldeutsche
Medienförderung, Simone Baumann, agent for Eastern Europe of German Films as well as president
of the "Friends of the German-Russian film academy" association, Prof. Dieter Wiedemann, president of
the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen Konrad Wolf, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Culture
and the Petersburg Dialogue as well as Jörg Ackermann, Festival Organizer and Roland Rust, Festival Director,
as well as many German and Russian filmmakers.
Since 2008, the FilmFestival Cottbus has been dedicating a special programme for Russia as the country
with the most film productions in Eastern Europe. During the "Russkiy Den" (Russian Day) on Nov 11th
the current Russian cinema was in the focus of the festival theatre Weltspiegel. For the detailed programme
see http://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/
Press contact during the Festival: +49 355 2886054
Tamina Kutscher
Assistenz Presse-und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
19. FilmFestival Cottbus
Festival des osteuropäischen Films
Festival of East European Cinema
10.-15. November 2009
Fon: +49 (355) 43 107-16
Fax: +49 (355) 43 107-20
