Eastern Europe between history and new challenges

This year, from 8 to 13 November, the FilmFestival Cottbus will bring the world of Eastern European film to Cottbus for the 26th time. Some 200 productions from about 35 countries, ranging from blockbusters to arthouse films, will be presented in four competitions and another eight programme sections. A varied supporting programme will provide inspiration and entertainment also beyond the silver screen. As always, the heart of the festival programme is comprised of three sections, the Feature Film Competition, Short Feature Competition and the U18 Youth Film Competition, with the latter being expanded this year to include the Czech Republic in addition to Germany and Poland. Again, expert juries have been recruited to assess the entries. The Feature Film Competition jury alone features a top-class cast with actress and director Mirjana Karanovic (Serbia), the Cottbus 2015 winner and shooting star at this year's Berlinale Tihana Lazovic (Croatia), actress Kate Molchanova (Ukraine), producer Marek Rozenbaum (Israel) and writer Elisabeth Hermann (Germany).

Topics 2016: Searching for traces and Focus Cuba

"Especially in our time, it is of enormous importance to build bridges with all available means. Here, we do this predominantly with the medium of film", says Managing Director Andreas Stein about the intention behind the festival. Programme Director Bernd Buder further substantiates: "With a new Focus series, which this year focuses on Cuba, we turn our attention to a range of issues that will lead us to countries that over the course of the 20th century have been much influenced by Soviet-style socialism. Moreover, the Specials series 'Searching for traces: German-Czech-Polish history in a state of flux' will address itself to the increasing efforts of Polish and Czech film makers in investigating in great detail the resettlement of people as a consequence of events during World War II. The series 'Bridges and disruption' devotes itself to the disruption of identification in East Germany in the 1990s. After the huge success of the anniversary issue in the past year, the organisers again prepare to welcome about 20,000 cinemagoers and continue in their efforts of presenting the FilmFestival Cottbus as a competence centre for contemporary Eastern European film. The involved film makers have been invited to take part in discussions and the website www.filmfestivalcottbus.de is being revamped and will in future provide a comprehensive archive of festival films since 1991.

The FilmFestival Cottbus receives significant support from the Federal State of Brandenburg, the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH, the City of Cottbus, the German Federal Foreign Office and the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Please use the following contact details for requesting further information as well as images for print and broadcasting purposes:

Alex Schirmer (Head of PR & Marketing)
Telephone: +49 (355) 4310713
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Jenni Ellwanger
Telephone: +49 (355) 4310714
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Anne-Kathrin Schöler-Rensch
Telephone: +49 (355) 4310726
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