Cottbus Film Festival was organized for the first time in 1991. It can be described as an extremely significant event on the map of German film, a kind of gate to the cinematography of Central and Eastern Europe. Cottubus Film Festival enables filmmakers, producers, distributors, film experts to meet as well as to establish intercultural dialogue.
The festival regularly offers two programmes devoted to films from the most active countries as far as film-making is concerned. These are from Eastern Europe – namely, from Russia and Poland. Within the frames of “Russian day” the latest Russian productions are shown, in addition to a wide range of Polish films, which is the result of the cooperation between the Festival in Cottbus and Era New Horizons film event from Wroclaw.
However, the main pillar of the Cuttbus Film Festival is the competition programme, in which also Polish films also took part. Even more, two of them were awarded. Apart from the feature film “All that I Love” by Jacek Borcuch, also Katarzyna Klimiewicz stood on the podium, receiving for her short–length feature film “Hanoi-Warsaw” the EY 2010 special award, given on the occasion of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.
“Hanoi-Warsaw” is a story about a young Vietnamese woman, Mai Anh, who goes to Poland through the green border. Her final destination is Warsaw, where her fiancé awaits her. However, the journey though Poland becomes almost a dramatic struggle for dignity and survival.
Katarzyna Klimkiewicz is a graduate of the Film and Television Directing Department at The Leon Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź, as well as a scholarship holder of Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam. Together with Andrew Friedman she made “Wasserschlacht – The Great Border Battle” which won the Berlin Today Award at Berlinale 2007. Her script won the “Young Staff – the Debutantes” competition organized by Kino Polska Television.
“Hanoi-Warsaw” is nominated for European Film Academy Award, one of the most prestigious European awards for filmmakers.
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