FilmFestival Cottbus opens with Latvian hit Escape Net and 147 films

FilmFestival Cottbus opened its 36th edition on Tuesday 3 November with Dzintars Dreibergs’s Latvian basketball drama Escape Net, according to the festival’s opening-day note and the official programme booklet. The invitation-only ceremony was at 7pm in the Staatstheater Cottbus; the opening film then screened at 9pm at Filmtheater Weltspiegel. Through Sunday 8 November the festival programmes 147 films from 43 production and co-production countries across three competitions and further sections.

Key facts

• Dates: 3–8 November 2026, Cottbus, Germany; 36th edition
• Scale: 147 films from 43 countries; prizes worth about €52,000
• Opening: Escape Net (Tīklā. TTT leģendas dzimšana), Dzintars Dreibergs (Latvia, 2025, 110 min), Close-Up: Latvia
• Competitions: Feature Film (10), Short Film (13), new GenNext (6); 29 films in total
• Industry: connecting cottbus (coco) co-production market, 4–6 November

Cottbus is one of the main dedicated windows for contemporary Central and Eastern European cinema on the German calendar, sitting between Tallinn Black Nights and the late-autumn European circuit that also includes MedFilm in Rome and Mar del Plata’s FIAPF edition. More festival coverage is in Festivals & Markets.

Courtesy of FilmFestival Cottbus

Opening film and Close-Up: Latvia

Escape Net follows Soviet-era Riga basketball star Dzidra Uztupe as sporting success collides with KGB pressure after her brother goes into exile. The festival film page credits Dreibergs as director (screenplay with Ligita Lukstraupe); Agnese Budovska leads the cast. The booklet and film page say the title drew more than 130,000 admissions in Latvia and won four prizes at the 2026 Lielais Kristaps, including Best Feature Film, Best Actress and the Audience Award. Dreibergs was due to introduce the film in Cottbus.

The picture anchors Close-Up: Latvia, a 14-film country focus funded by Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education. Features in the strand include Laila Pakalniņa’s Cat on My Mind, Alise Zariņa’s Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart, Gints Zilbalodis’s Oscar-winning Flow, Dāvis Sīmanis’s Maria’s Silence, Oskars Rupenheits’s Red Code Blue, Reinis Kalviņš’s The Bog and Viesturs Kairišs’s Ulya, plus a six-title Latvian shorts block.

Competitions, sidebars and market

Twenty-nine films compete across three strands. The Feature Film Competition holds ten titles, among them Radu Jude’s The Diary of a Chambermaid, Kantemir Balagov’s Butterfly Jam, Levan Koguashvili’s Guria and Ukrainian entries Kira’s Dream and Memory. The Short Film Competition packages 13 films into two “Long Night of Short Films” programmes. GenNext, new for 2026 and aimed at teenage and young-adult stories, fields six features including Milena Aboyan’s Drei Kameradinnen, which opened public screenings on Tuesday afternoon.

Sidebars named in the booklet include Spectrum (with a Montenegro special and a “Transformation without End?” Berlin Wall strand), Hits, EcoEast, Heimat | Domownja | Domizna, Cottbus Masters (including Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, Šarūnas Bartas’s Back to the Family and Władysław Pasikowski’s Operation Pope), Don’t Call Me Vintage! for Andrzej Wajda’s centenary, Kids Cinema, and an Ukrainian Day. A new FFC Compass groups Crime Nights and Popcorn Cinema recommendations across sections. connecting cottbus (coco), the East-West co-production market, runs 4–6 November alongside the public programme. FilmNewEurope put the edition’s prize pot at about €52,000.

The international festival jury for the feature competition, introduced at the opening ceremony per the festival note and FilmNewEurope’s programme report, includes Polish director Maciej Sobieszczański, Croatian director Igor Šeregi, Haifa festival artistic director Yaron Shamir, German actress Claudia Geisler-Bading and ZDF/ARTE commissioning editor Urte Fink.

Full selection

Titles below follow the official programme booklet and the festival’s English film pages. English titles are used where the festival supplies them; countries are production codes as listed by the festival. The festival’s headline count is 147 films; the structured list below covers every title with its own festival film page (134), including overlaps such as Ukrainian Day titles that also appear in Spectrum or Hits.

Feature Film Competition (10)

• A Safe Place, Cecilia Ștefănescu (RO)
• A Woman Asleep, Vikki Bardot (TR)
• Black Trumpet, Bojan Stijović (ME)
• Butterfly Jam, Kantemir Balagov (FR/US)
• Guria, Levan Koguashvili (GE/CH/LU/BG/TR/NO/SA)
• Kira’s Dream, Denys Kolesnikov (UA)
• Memory, Vladlena Sandu (NL/FR)
• The Diary of a Chambermaid, Radu Jude (FR/RO)
• What Belongs to Others, Grzegorz Dębowski (PL)
• You Don’t Belong Here, Florin Șerban (RO)

Short Film Competition (13)

Long Night of Short Films I

• Second Hand, Ferhat Ertan (TR)
• Three Left Feet, Stefan Košević, Laura Vuksan (HR)
• Spiritus Sanctus, Michał Toczek (PL)
• Free Eliza (Notes on an Anatomical Imperfection), Alexandra Matheou (CY/GR/FR)
• 1H, Mara Cohn (RO)
• Shallow Ground, Jozo Schmuch (HR)

Long Night of Short Films II

• Separation, Dan Grechkin, Alan Smithiev (KZ)
• Starflyer, Maria Hatzakou (GR)
• Auto-Anxiety, Jan Šolc (CZ)
• Sestry, Nikol Urbanová, Luca Pereș-Bota (CZ)
• Fairy Godmothers Inc., Matei Preda (RO)
• Raklo, Petr Simon (CZ/SK)
• Ankara 1979, Can Carayalcin (TR)

GenNext Competition (6)

• Drei Kameradinnen, Milena Aboyan (DE)
• Dump of Untitled Pieces, Melik Kuru (TR)
• Everything That’s Wrong with You, Urša Menart (SI/DE/RS)
• Lover, Not a Fighter, Martina Buchelová (SK/CZ)
• Malika, Natalia Uvarova (IE/KZ/MD)
• Teresa’s Body, Magdalena Chmielewska (AT)

Close-Up: Latvia (14)

Features

• Cat on My Mind, Laila Pakalniņa (LV)
• Escape Net, Dzintars Dreibergs (LV) (opening film)
• Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart, Alise Zariņa (LV)
• Flow, Gints Zilbalodis (LV/BE/FR)
• Maria’s Silence, Dāvis Sīmanis (LV/LT)
• Red Code Blue, Oskars Rupenheits (LV)
• The Bog, Reinis Kalviņš (LV/DE/EE)
• Ulya, Viesturs Kairišs (LV/PL/EE/LT)

Latvian Shorts

• Film Film, Artūrs Vobļikovs (LV/GB)
• Where Does the Sun Sleep at Night?, Ildza Felsberga (LV)
• My First Funeral, Līva Klepere (LV)
• Wandering Dot and the Blank Square Page Universe, Ieva Lība Ratniece (LV/BE)
• Dusty Doomsday, Alvīna Jansen (LV)
• Slush, Aivars Šaicāns, Jēkabs Okonovs (LV)

Spectrum (18)

• A Little Gray Wolf Will Come, Zhanna Agalakova (HR/NL/FR)
• Borderline, Ignas Jonynas (LT)
• Dua, Blerta Basholli (XK/CH/FR)
• Eurokryvbas, Maryna Tkachuk, Anna Palenchuk (UA/CA)
• Hirnyk, Mykola But (UA)
• How to Survive the Summer Holidays, Michał Grzybowski (PL)
• I Saw a ‘Suno’, Katalin Bársony (HU/BE)
• Mutter: The Diary of a Mother, Alphan Eşeli (TR)
• My Morning Routine, Vadym Adamov (UA)
• Polizeiruf 110: Stalker, Oliver Schmitz (DE)
• Post Truth, Alkan Avcıoğlu (TR)
• Rapture I – Visit, Alisa Berger (FR/DE)
• The Circle, Valeriu Andriuță (MD/RO)
• The Stamp Thief, Dan Sturman (US)
• Through the Wall, Maciej Sobieszczański (PL)
• Wind, Talk to Me, Stefan Đorđević (RS/SI/HR)
• Winter in March, Natalia Mirzoyan (EE)
• Wirbel, Tomáš Hubáček (CZ/SK)

Spectrum: View from the Black Mountain – Montenegro Special (7)

• A Special Day, Katarina Bulajić (ME)
• Ada, Ilija Đurović, Branislav Milatović (ME)
• Bark, Branislav Milatović (ME)
• Supermarket, Nemanja Bećanović (ME)
• To Hold a Mountain, Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić (RS/FR/ME/SI)
• Tuesday or Thursday, Dušan Kasalica (ME)
• Urosh, Mato Uljarević (ME)

Spectrum: Transformation without End? (10)

• Herzsprung, Helke Misselwitz (DE)
• Invalid, Jonáš Karásek (SK)
• Is It Easy to Be Young?, Juris Podnieks (SU)
• Morgen vor langer Zeit, Luise Donschen (DE)
• On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Štefan Semjan (SK)
• Pelikan Blue, László Csáki (HU)
• Sweet Emma, Dear BÖBE, István Szabó (HU/DE)
• The Class of 1990, Sonja Hilberger, RP Kahl (DE)
• The Southern Chronicles, Ignas Miškinis (LT/EE)
• Wendezeiten – Erlebt, Erfragt, Erzählt, Various school students (DE)

Spectrum: MIOB In Shorts (12)

• Beyond Silence, Marnie Blok (NL)
• Dead but Not Gone, Hêvî Çınar (DE/TR)
• E/Rased Worlds, Aušra Lukošiūnienė (LT)
• Found&Lost, Reza Rasouli (AT)
• From Something to Nothing, Michael Heindl (AT)
• Index, Radu Muntean (RO)
• Lime Kiln Workers, Nevena Micić, Katarina Micić, Filip Marojević (RS)
• Marelle, Kristjan Poom (EE)
• Pet-Extermination, Mikkel Storm Glomstein (NO)
• Pvrgatorivm, Máté Gergely Kiss (HU)
• Tem Fé, Helen Esther Aschauer, Leonor Patrocinio (PT)
• Those Who Move, Stephanie Ricci (BR/PT)

Hits (7)

• All Shades of Temptation, Iryna Gromozda (UA)
• Feels Like Home, Gábor Holtai (HU)
• Last Call, Sherif Francis (GR)
• On Drive, Artem Lytvynenko (UA)
• Son of Revenge – The Story of Kalevala, Antti J. Jokinen (FI)
• The Virus of Pathological Kindness, Predrag Ličina (RS/HR/BA/SI)
• The Wedding, Igor Šeregi (HR/RS)

EcoEast (7)

• All Birds Sing Beautifully, Krista Burāne (LV)
• Aydinlar – Where the World Ends, Diana Näcke (DE/UZ)
• Baltic UXO, Alexander Belinski, Agnė Dovydaitytė (LT/DE/LV)
• Flood, Martin Gonda (SK/CZ/BE/PL)
• Mergen, Chingiz Narynov (KG)
• Non-Degradable, Ivan Dovranić (HR)
• Penguin, Kaspar Jancis (EE/FR)

Heimat | Domownja | Domizna (11)

• Exodus Namib, Kai-Uwe Kohlschmidt, Tom Franke (DE/NA)
• Gaž wětšyk dujo… – Und auf steht die Wahrheit, Toni Bruk (DDR)
• Jamlitz: A Documentary Fairy-Tale, Ksenia Ciuvaseva (DE)
• Selfie beim Höllensturz, Donald Saischowa (DE)
• So war es damals? Einblicke in historisches sorbisches/wendisches Filmmaterial, Kurt Heine, Antje Meichsner (DDR/DE)
• Spiwanje – Co nas zwězujo, Roman Pernack (DE)
• Wnučki Łužičanow – Die Enkel der Lausitzer, Armin Georgi (DDR)
• Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt (Vergewisserung. Europa Episoden 2 & 3), Donald Saischowa (DE)
• Wopyt – Unruhe, Toni Bruk (DDR)
• Árru, Elle Sofe Sara (NO/SE/FI)
• Štom stejo mrěje – At the End of the Bread Tree, Reiner J. Nagel (DE)

Cottbus Masters (7)

• 3 Days in September, Tudor Giurgiu (RO)
• Back to the Family, Šarūnas Bartas (LT/FR/LV/PL)
• Fjord, Cristian Mungiu (RO/FR/NO/SE/DK/FI)
• Minotaurus, Andrey Zvyagintsev (FR/DE)
• Only Beautiful Things to Look At, Ivan Ostrochovský (SK/CZ/HU)
• Operation Pope, Władysław Pasikowski (PL)
• Selten wache ich träumend auf, Isabelle Stever (DE/UA)

Don’t Call Me Vintage! (9)

• Ashes and Diamonds, Andrzej Wajda (PL)
• Birthday, Maciej Sobieszczański (PL)
• Ela – Sketches on a Departure, Oliver Adam Kusio (DE)
• Eyes Won’t See, Yann Rehberg (DE)
• Innocent Sorcerers, Andrzej Wajda (PL)
• Landscape After the Battle, Andrzej Wajda (PL)
• Live, Mara Tamkovich (PL)
• Promised Land, Andrzej Wajda (PL)
• Stimulants & Empathogens, Mateusz Pacewicz (PL)

Kids Cinema (3)

• Born in the Jungle, Edmunds Jansons (LV/PL/CZ)
• Extraordinary, Marina Andree Škop, Vanda Raýmanová (HR/SK/SI/LV/RS)
• Princess of Glass, Josephine Frydetzki (DE)

Screening times, venues and tickets are on the festival schedule. Student Day on Wednesday 4 November offers free entry with a valid student ID; school pupils can attend GenNext screenings free with a school ID, the booklet and festival site say.

Our reading

For sales agents and festival programmers, Cottbus remains a compact CEE scouting stop rather than a deal market: three competitions plus the Latvia focus give a dense sample of the region’s current features and shorts in six days, with connecting cottbus running in parallel for development projects. Escape Net’s Latvian box-office track record and Lielais Kristaps haul make it a safe, audience-facing opener for a country focus; the commercial test is which competition and Spectrum titles travel on to Berlin, Rotterdam or spring markets with sales attached.

Sources

• FilmFestival Cottbus, Lights, Camera, Action! The 36th FilmFestival Cottbus Starts Today (3 Nov 2026)
• FilmFestival Cottbus, Escape Net film page (director, credits, runtime, Close-Up: Latvia)
• FilmFestival Cottbus, official programme booklet PDF (36th edition, 3-8 Nov 2026)
• FilmFestival Cottbus home (dates 3–8 November 2026)
• FilmNewEurope, 147 Films from 43 Countries: Full Programme of the 36th FilmFestival Cottbus Announced (15 Oct 2026; secondary)