The Georgian-Swiss production "Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry" by Elene Naveriani has won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury in Cottbus 2023. Lead actress Eka Chavleishvili was honoured by the international festival jury with the prize for an outstanding individual performance. The film also received the Prize for promoting the distribution of a festival film, which is endowed with €10,000 by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.
The festival's main prize for the best film went to "Forever-Forever" by Anna Buryachkova from Ukraine, while the special prize for best director went to Rezo Gigineishvili for "Patient #1" (Georgia 2023). The Jury of International Film Critics awarded its prize to "Libertate" by Tudor Giurgiu (Georgia 2023), which won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at CineFest Miskolc before.
On 7 November, the 33rd FilmFestival Cottbus opened with the documentary "Bei uns heißt sie Hanka" by Grit Lemke, which deals with the status and self-image of the Sorbian minority. At the centre of the festival are the three competitions for the best feature film, short film and youth film. The ecumenical jury choose its winner from the feature film competition, which this year comprised twelve productions. With the competition and eight other festival sections, Cottbus provided an overview of current Eastern European filmmaking. The country focus "Close up" was dedicated to Kazakhstan, "Polskie Horizonty: The Female Gaze" focussed on films by young Polish female directors and the thematic focus "What remains of history" dealt with the resistance against the communist dictatorships. On Saturday, 11 November, the festival programmed a "Ukrainian Day" with 7 of a total of 10 Ukrainian festival films. The festival screened a total of 140 films from 40 countries.