Everything's now in place: on Tuesday, 6th November, Matthias Platzeck, Minister President of the Federal State of Brandenburg and patron of FilmFestival Cottbus, will open the festival's 17th edition. The numerous honorary guests from the worlds of the arts, politics and business will include Petra Maria Müller and Kirsten Niehuus, managing directors of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH, as well as Frank Szymanski, Lord Mayor of the City of Cottbus, as representatives of the festival's tw...

The 16th Cottbus International Film Festival festival closed its five day run on Saturday November 18th with the distribution of the prizes and the premiere of the new German film "Herzentöter" (Heartbreaker) by Cottbus born director Bernd Heiber. This absurd slap-sticky comedy set completely in the local Spreewald area, went over well with the local audience but is not likely to travel very far from Lusatia. The main prize, 25,000 €, for Best Film went to the Serbian competition entry "Sutra...

"Chosebuz" is the traditional name of the city of Cottbus in the local Sorbian (Wendish) language, a minority Slavic tongue which is now unfortunately on the verge of extinction, but the culture of which survives in various forms in this border region of East Germany. The Cottbus Film Festival, now in its 16th edition was established in 1991 in order to promote the films of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This is one international film festival (as opposed to single country film we...