Eastern European cinema remains political. Between parables of totalitarianism, analytical observation and caustic satire, developments since the fall of the Iron Curtain and current social rifts are put to the test, the hopes of the 1990s are set against the current political backward gear.
In TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE (TR) by Tunç Şahin, an agency buys up bad loans from banks and drives the debtors into a corner with psychological pressure, while DERSAADET APARTMENT (TR) by Tankut Kılınç shows an Istanbul where Art Nouveau buildings of old elegance have to make way for gentrification - including the house and thus the mental home of its protagonist. In FACTORY TO THE WORKERS (HR) by Srđan Kovačević, the employees of a Croatian machine tool factory, who once managed to resist the threat of privatisation and set up a self-governing body, are confronted with the laws of a global market in their struggle for economic survival. The Kafkaesque satire MAN FROM PODOLSK (RU) by Semyon Serzin takes the audience's expectations ad absurdum by turning predictable plots into the opposite: a young man is arrested by a militia because he is too sad and is asked to dance and sing by the policemen. Set to eclectic pop music, LOVE TASTING (PL) by Dawid Nickel is a visually sweeping account of hidden homosexuality in one of those places in Poland that are currently being declared 'LGBT-free zones' by national conservative mayors. A COLOURFUL DREAM (CZ) by Jan Balej, in a mixture of the best Czech puppet tradition, modern computer animation and black humour, depicts the cat-and-mouse game between a colourful group of artists and a perfidious dictator on a remote island - an imaginative parable of totalitarianism that has fallen out of time and is unfortunately, becoming topical again today.
The section ITS ALL GO IN THE EAST deals with the transformation processes in Poland, Russia, (East) Germany and Ukraine during the nineties. This journey leads from Andreas Voigt's LAST YEAR TITANIC (DE), which documents stories of upheaval and transformation in Leipzig, to THE ADMIRAL TCHUMAKOV (BE, FR), by Laurier Fourniau and Arnaud Alberola, who portray the former commander of a naval port on a Kyrgyz mountain lake, where a modern resort will soon replace the port facilities. In ARTISTS OF PERESTROIKA (NL), director Masha Novikova looks back at the lively underground cultural exchange between Dutch and Russian Gesamtkunst groups at the beginning of the 1990s, when mutual curiosity and anarchic joy of experimentation made people want to live together without borders. On the occasion of DEFA's 75th anniversary, a tribute is dedicated to the exceptional writer Christa Wolf and her commitment to the inner democratisation of East German society.
The political richness of this year's programme is completed by the gripping miscarriage of justice melodrama 25 YEARS OF INNOCENCE (PL) by Jan Holoubek, as well as the story of a forbidden love between two women in Turkey, staged with Mediterranean lightness in Ümit Ünal's LOVE, SPELLS AND ALL THAT (TR). And Dāvis Sīmani's THE YEAR BEFORE THE WAR (LV, CZ, LT) about the turmoil of World War I's pre-March is told in black and white dream images with mystical elements. They promise exciting and thought-provoking entertainment.
Advance ticket sales are on now at filmfestivalcottbus.de and at all Reservix advance sales points. Tickets for the 31st FFC cost between 4.00 EUR and 7.50 EUR. For FFC lovers there are 5-ticket passes and festival passes once again. For the first time, the FFC also offers an online FestivalPass..
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