Films from Serbia, Ukraine and Poland were among the winners at the 34th edition of FilmFestival Cottbus and the parallel East-West co-productio
Films from Serbia, Ukraine and Poland were among the winners at the 34th edition of FilmFestival Cottbus and the parallel East-West co-production market connecting cottbus in Germany at the weekend.
Serbian director Iva Radivojević received the main award with a cash prize of €15,000 in the feature film competition for her second narrative feature When The Phone Rang which also garnered the Fipresci jury prize.
The international jury, comprised of Armenian director-producer Inna Sahakyan, Croatian actress-screenwriter Anja Matković and sales agent Xavier Henry-Rashid of Film Republic, praised Radivojevic’s film ‘for its authentic narrative of a country falling apart and its unique, poetic film language, which sensitively balances the personal feelings of a teenage girl, collective pain and political events in its portrayal of memories.’
Produced by Set Sail Films and Ivaasks Films in association with Picture Palace Pictures had its world premiere in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present competition in August and is being handled internationally by Lights On.
A special mention was to Croatian director Filip Peruzović’s Good Children which also won the prize of the Ecumenical Jury donated by Signis and Interfilm.
The special prize for best director went to the Ukrainian writer-director Pavlo Ostrikov for his science fiction drama U R The Universe.
This debut feature – which also picked up the festival’s audience award with a cash prize of €3,000 – had originally been pitched at Cottbus’ co-production market connecting cottbus in 2019 and was picked up for international sales by True Colours before premiering in Toronto’s Discovery section this September.
Greek actress Eva Samioti won the best actress award for her role in Orfeas Peretzis’ debut Riviera which had its European premiere in Cottbus after first screening in Sao Paulo.
Further award winners included Polish director Justyna Mytnik’s murky coming of age drama Wet Monday in the U18 Youth Film Competition and two films screening in the Spectrum sidebar – Serbian filmmaker Emilija Gašić’s 78 Days and Ukrainian director Kornli Hrytsiuk’s Zinema. 78 Days received the prize for best debut film, donated by the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg and the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, while Zinema was presented with the dialogue prize for intercultural communication by its jury for revealing “how deeply propaganda from the Russian government has spread in the film industry and media”.
Connecting Cottbus
The 26th edition of the parallel East-West co-production market connecting cottbus (6 – 8 November) saw the main prizes going to filmmakers from Poland, Ukraine and Latvia.
Industry professionals attending the public presentations of 13 projects in development last Thursday afternoon (November 7) voted to give this year’s cocoPITCH Award with a cash prize of €1,500 to the Polish project Do Me Bad by director Maria Wider and her producers Izabela Łopuch (Spirit Animal) and Mirosław Bork (MWM Media).
Based on a true story, Wider’s debut feature tackles a topic rarely seen in Polish cinema – how love can survive the damage caused by sex addiction.
Latvian director Anna Ansone’s debut feature Summer Blues, produced by Alise Gelze of White Picture, won the Avanpost award of in-kind postproduction services to the value of €15,000, while the Croatian Audiovisual Centre’s €5,000 project development award went to the period tragicomedy Golden Leggings by Ukrainian director Arkadii Nepytaliuk and producers Regina Maryanovska Davidzon and Oleksiy Gladushevskyy of Kyiv-based Real Pictures.
Czech producer Krystof Burda of Petr Pylypcuk’s coming of age drama Eli And Them won the Producers’ Network award of accreditation to the Producers; Network at the Marché du Film in Cannes 2025.
Greek-Polish co-production Bear Hug, Polish project Do Me Bad and Czech genre-bender No Salvation Coming were awarded three script consultancies from the Midpoint programme.
In the works in progress section, Slovenian director Luka Marčetić’s black comedy Girl In The Night, and producers Andraž Jerič and Jerca Jerič, won the D-Facto Motion WIP Award of €35,000 in-kind services plus up to €5,000 for additional expenses.
Slovenian-German-Serbian co-production Everything That’s Wrong With You, presented in Cottbus by director Urša Menart and producer Katja Lenarčič of Vertigo, secured the Studio Beep Sound Postproduction award of €6.000.
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