After nearly two decades of rapid growth as the key festival in the West for East European Cinema – namely, film productions in the former socialist bloc – the 18th Cottbus Festival of East European Cinema (11-16 November 2008) under its enterprising festival director Roland Rust was celebrated on opening night by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier as “the most important German meeting place for the East European film scene.” Indeed, Film Festival Cottbus – as it’s known by its nickname – confirmed its status as a splendid showcase of films in all categories produced in old, new, and renovated film studios from Berlin to Siberia. Its meticulously assembled 223-page German/English catalogue tells you all you need to know about production in these emerging filmlands. Altogether, 136 films from 36 countries were programmed for 17,300 visitors and 500 professional guests. And for guests arriving a bit late, due to an unfortunate overlapping with the Mannheim-Heidelberg film festival, an extra day was set aside after the awards night for a rerun of the prizewinners.
Besides the two official competitions for features and shorts, Cottbus festival also programmed a diverse selection of films under such catch-all titles as Specials, Spectrum, National Hits, Children’s and Youth Films, Russian Day – Highlights of the Year, a Focus on “New Cinema from the Baltics” (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), a Retrospective titled “1968: the Prague Spring and Its Aftermath.” Further, producers and directors from East European countries could participate in the “Connecting Cottbus” forum, a platform for promoting cooperation and coproduction between potential partners in East and West Europe. One did not have to look far to find evidence that East/West European coproductions are becoming more plentiful. One of the Special Jury Prizes was awarded to Sergei Dvortsevoy’s Tulpan, a coproduction linking Kazakhstan with Russia, Poland, Germany, and Switzerland. Also, the Don Quixote Prize by the International Federation of Film Societies (IFFS) was awarded to Kornel Mundruczo’s Delta, a coproduction between Hungary and Germany). And the Audience Award went to Bohdan Slama’s Vencovsky ucitel (Country Teacher), a coproduction linking the Czech Republic with Germany and France).
Alexei Uchitel’s Plennyj (Captive) (Russia/Bulgaria) was awarded Best Film. A rarity in Russian cinema, Captive scores as a forthright inquiry into the pain inflicted by the Russian military upon innocent bystanders during the Chechnyan war. When a young villager is enlisted by Russian soldiers in a mountainous terrain to help find a way to lead a trapped convoy to safety, two soldiers, a hardened veteran and a young recruit, accompany the young man through the lines. The trio gradually confront their own misgivings in a conflict they barely understand, one that will lead to a tragic personal defeat for all concerned.
Awarded the Special Jury Prize for Best Director, Sergei Dvortsevoy’s Tulpan opened Cottbus after winning a bundle of prizes at other major festivals – among them the Certain Regard Award at Cannes, the East of the West Award and the Netpac (Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema) Award at Karlovy Vary, the Sutherland Trophy at London, the Golden Puffin at Reykjavik, and the Best Film and Director Award at Tokyo. Shot over a period of months in the steppes of Kazakhstan, Tulpan confirms Sergei Dvortsevoy as a masterful film poet, a director who draws his inspiration from simple situations in real life and prefers nonprofessionals over actors. Let it be said that with this debut feature film he already ranks among the few directors in the history of cinema who can create a world of laughter and tears that the universal audience can relate to. The courtship of Tulpan, whose face we never see in the film, is stymied when Asa, the suitor who has just returned from his military tour in the navy, learns that his ears happen to be too big! Nevertheless, as it turns out, he is able to prove his manhood in other ways by accepting the challenges that the hard nomadic life on the steppes has to offer.
Awarded at Cottbus the FIPRESCI (International Critics) Prize and the Ecumenical Prize, plus a Special Mention by the International Jury, Mikhail Kalatozishvili’s Dikoye polye (Wild Field) previously received a trip of awards at the Sochi Open Russian Film Festival: Best Screenplay (the late Pyotr Lutzik and Alexei Samoryadov), Best Film Music (Alexei Aigi), and the “White Elephant” Award of the Russian Critics. Shot on the steppes of Central Asia, Wild Field scores as a funny, absurd, weird folk-drama about a young doctor who just opened his office at an outpost in no man’s land. Among the crazy things that occur almost daily are a drunken worker, who has to be revived from a heart attack with a scorching branding-iron, and a belle of the steppes, who ankles by to flirt and try her luck. All along, a mysterious hermit has been popping into view from a hillside to add some more mystery to the goings-on. Forget the story – there isn’t any. Just a spectrum of poetic images to delight the eye.
The highlight of the festival? No doubt, the presence of two veteran East European directors – Czech Republic’s Jiri Menzel and Hungary’s Istvan Szabo – whose distinguished careers not only set artistic standards in socialist cinema but also challenged the status quo at watershed moments in Cold War history. Jiri Menzel, whose Ostre sledovane vlaky (Closely Watch Trains) (Czechoslovakia, 1966) won the 1968 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, presented at Cottbus his delightful Obsluhoval jsem Anglickeho Krale (I Served the King of England) (Czech Republic, 2006), another screen adaptation of his favorite author Bohumil Hrabal (his literary source for Closely Watched Trains). At the same time, Cottbus audiences were treated to three classics of the “Prague Spring” in the Retrospective: the omnibus film Perlicky na dne (Pearls in the Depth) (Czechoslovakia, 1966) by Jiri Menzel, Evald Schorm, Jan Nemec, and Vera Chytilova; Jan Nemec’s O slavnosti a hostech (The Party and Its Guests) (Czechoslovakia, 1966); and Juraj Jakubisko’s Vtackovia, siroty a blazni (Birds, Orphans, and Fools) (Czechoslovakia, 1969).
Istvan Szabo, whose Mephisto (Hungary/Austria/West Germany, 1981) won the 1982 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, presented at Cottbus his comedy Rokonok (Relatives) (Hungary, 2006), a remake of Felix Mariassy’s 1954 original that satirized political shenanigans in Hungary of the 1930s. Szabo had studied film direction under Mariassy at the Budapest Film Academy (1956-61), arriving at the Academy shortly after Mariassy’s light-handed Relatives proved a success with critics and at the box-office.
Awards
Feature Film Competition
Main Prize
Plennyj (Captive) (Russia/Bulgaria), dir Alexei Uchitel
Special Jury Prize – Best Director
Tulpan (Kazakhstan/Russia/Poland/Germany/Switzerland), dir Sergei Dvortsevoy
Special Jury Prize – Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Michal Rosa, Screenplay for Rysa (Scratch) (Poland), dir Michal Rosa
Special Mention
Dikoye polye (Wild Field) (Russia), dir Mikhail Kalatozishvili
Short Feature Competition
Main Prize
Vacsora (The Dinner) (Hungary), dir Karchi Perlmann
Special Prize
Alexandra (Romania), dir Radu Jude
FIPRESCI International Critics Prize
Dikoye polye (Wild Field) (Russia), dir Mikhail Kalatozishvili
Ecumenical Prize
Dikoye polye (Wild Field) (Russia), dir Mikhail Kalatozishvili
Special Mention
Tulpan (Kazakhstan/Russia/Poland/Germany/Switzerland), dir Sergei Dvortsevoy
Don Quixote Prize – International Federation of Film Societies (IFFS)
Delta (Hungary/Germany), dir Kornel Mundruczo
DIALOGUE Prize for Inter-Cultural Communication
Plennyj (Captive) (Russia/Bulgaria), dir Alexei Uchitel
Cottbus Discovery Award – Focus on “New Cinema from the Baltics”
Kinnunen (Estonia), dir Andri Luup
“From Cottbus to Cinema” – Distribution Support Prize
To be announced at Cottbus Film Festival reception at Berlinale
GWFF Promotion Prize – Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrechten (Society for Copyright Protection of Film and TV Rights)
Marianne Ostrat, Student, Baltic Film and Media School, Tallinn, Estonia
Promotion Prize of DEFA Foundation
Novemberkind (November Child) (Germany), dir Christian Schwochow
Cottbus Student Prize – Best Debut Film
Mucha (Mukha) (Russia), Wladimir Kott
Audience Award
Vencovsky ucitel (Country Teacher) (Czech Republic/Germany/France), dir Bohdan Slama
6th Cottbus Film Show
Cottbus Film und Media Prize
Cottbus-Coschen – Eine Fahrt ins Sackdorf (Cottbus-Coschen – A Trip to Sackdorf) (Germany), dir Benjamin Ciupek, Roman Kreusch
Audience Award
Bevor es begann (Before It Began) (Germany), dir Ulrich Zimmermann, Sebastian Rau