32nd FilmFestival Cottbus

Festival of East European Cinema
08.11.2022 to 13.11.2022
Cottbus

 

"Minsk", directed by Boris Guts, an Estonian film situated in the Ukraine, has won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 32nd FilmFestival Cottbus, the festival for East European Cinema. The film was also chosen as their winner by the film critics's jury (Fipresci). The main prize of the festival for Best Direction went to "Safe Place", a Croatian-Slovenian co-production directed by Juraj Lerotić.

On 8 November, the 32nd FilmFestival Cottbus opened with the Ukrainian feature film "Luxembourg, Luxembourg". The festival showed a total of 219 films in four competition sections and seven other sections, 13 of them from Ukraine and three more about Ukraine. The Ecumenical Jury chose its winner from the 12 entries in the feature film competition.

As part of the supporting programme, an Ecumenical Evening took place on Thursday, 10 November, in the Oberkirche St. Nikolai under the motto " Kino - Kirche - Kurzfilm" (Cinema - Church - Short Film). The documentary short film "No Body and the Blue Sky" (OT: Ara Win Da Lurji Tsa) from the new EcoEast section, which is dedicated to Eastern European films on ecological themes, was shown and presented by director Magda Gvelesiani from Georgia.

Link: Festival website                               

Awards

Directed by:
2022

Julia and Pasha are a young couple in love. They are dreaming about starting a family in Minsk in 2020, where they live a normal life. Suddenly, everything changes, when they find themselves in the middle of the political protests. Facing violence and torture by the police they are confronted with a feeling of helplessness and the question, how you can fight “fair” for your own existence and values.

Minsk shows how especially the young people of Minsk are not willing to accept their totalitarian government anymore. They have not given up and fight for their human rights like democracy and freedom. This gets especially obvious in a conversation between Julia, Pasha and one protestant, who has rescued them from their police captivity. The comparison of a football game to the protestant raises the ethical question, which rules apply in a conflict like this and how those, who do not play by the rules could be “sent off”. Moreover, the movie depicts how toxic a connection between the institutional church and a totalitarian system could be. 

This one-shot-movie thrills its audience through its combination of plot and cinematographic style and lets no one leave the cinema untouched.

(Photo: © Leo Film)

Sermon to the Fish
Predigt an die Fische
Directed by:
2022

The movie is a cinematographic meditation referring to a spiritual dimension, which reflects the current problems of today’s world (pollution, war, solitude) and the search for a divine voice. (Photo: © Ucqar Film)