The Ecumenical Jury in Cottbus 2025 awarded its Prize to the Hungarian feature film ‘Pipás’ (Mayflies, Hungary 2025) by Emília Goldberg and additionally gave a Commendation to ‘Ida, ki je pela tako grdo, da so šemrtvi vstali od mrtvih in zapeli z njo’ (Ida Who Sang So Badly Even the Dead Rose Up and Joined Her in Song, Slovenia, Croatia 2025) by Ester Ivakič. The festival's main prize for the best film went to ‘Lijepa večer, lijep dan’ (Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day, Croatia, Poland, Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus 2024) by Ivona Juka. The International Film Critics Jury (Fipresci) awarded ‘Wrooklyn Zoo’ by Krzysztof Skonieczny (Poland, USA 2024).
On November 4, the 35th Cottbus Film Festival opened with the Slovak-Czech film “Duchoň” by Peter Bebjak about the career of Slovak pop star Karol Duchoň. Its main focus are the International Competition, the Short Film Competition, and the U18 Youth Film Competition. The Ecumenical Jury awards their prize in the International Competition.
This year the country section Close-Up was dedicated to Estonia. In addition to well-known sections such as Spectrum (on politics and everyday life) and Hits (on nationally or regionally successful films), the festival has established two new thematic sections: Masters (on internationally successful directors from Eastern Europe) and Don't Call Me Vintage (with films by innovative female directors from the 1980s). This year, one day was again dedicated specifically to Ukrainian cinema.