Whether in the mechanics of filmmaking or in the story lines themselves, the films are a mirror of the merging of European cultures that has evolved over the past quarter of a century, after periods of national displays and Euro-puddings. The dissolution of boundaries is becoming the norm in CEE films.
The Cottbus film festival under the leadership of Roland Rust itself played a crucial role in the process, when it launched the pitching platform Connecting Cottbus as a means of bringing together filmmakers from across the region. Partnerships were forged resulting in coproductions that are themselves finding their way back to Cottbus.
Two such films have been selected for the 2013 main competition: The Priest’s Children, a Serbo-Croatian tragicomedy, and Roxanne, a Romanian-Hungarian drama, both of which were pitched at Connecting Cottbus.
The competition is rife with further coproductions: Cefurs Raus! (Slovenia/Croatia); The Unsaved (Romania/Moldova); Love Me (Ukraine/Turkey); Withering (Serbia/Switzerland); and Miracle (Slovakia/Czech Republic). Even a film without coproduction partners, For Those Who Can Tell No Tales (Bosnia-Herzegovina), has an international component at the heart of its story, while Joanna Kos-Krauze, Krzysztof Krauze’s historical drama Papusza is the biographical tale of a Romani poet living in Poland. That leaves just two Russian films in the competition without an international or coproduction element: The Geographer Drank His Globe Away and The Major. Altogether, the 11 films in the competition represent 13 countries.
Aside from the main competition, the 2013 festival’s special section is a focus on the Roma and Sinti people, carrying on a border-crossing theme. The section includes films from countries with substantial Romany populations (Slovakia, Romania, Moldova) as well as first efforts at filmmaking from the Roma themselves.
The following films will screen in the main competition:
CEFURS RAUS! Dir. Goran Vojnović (Slovenia/Croatia) www.arsmedia.si
GEOGRAF GLOBUS PROPIL – THE GEOGRAPHER DRANK HIS GLOBE AWAY dir. Aleksandr Veledinsky (Russia)
LA LIMITA DE JOS A CERULUI – THE UNSAVED dir. Igor Cobileanski (Romania/Moldova) www.sagafilm.ro
LYUBY MENE – LOVE ME dir. Maryna Er-Gorbach, Mehmet Bahadir Er (Ukraine/Turkey)
MAJOR – THE MAJOR dir. Yury Bykov (Russia)
ODUMIRANJE – WITHERING dir. Miloš Pušic (Serbia/Switzerland)
PAPUSZA dir. Joanna Kos-Krauze, Krzysztof Krauze (Poland) www.tvp.pl
ROXANNE dir. Vali Hotea (Romania, Hungary) www.paradafilm.ro
SVECENIKOVA DJECA – THE PRIEST´S CHILDREN dir. Vinko Brešan (Croatia/Serbia) www.interfilm.hr
ZA ONE KOJI NE MOGU DA GOVORE – FOR THOSE WHO CAN TELL NO TALES dir. Jasmila Žbanic (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
ZÁZRAK – MIRACLE dir. Juraj Lehotský (Slovakia/Czech Republic) www.artileria.sk
