From 7 to 10 November, the Belarusian Filmmakers' Network (BFN) participated in Connecting Cottbus (coco). This East-West co-production market and networking platform focusing on Eastern European cinema ran during the Cottbus Film Festival.

Coco provides an opportunity to gain insight into current trends and challenges in film financing, production and distribution. Industry topics were explored in the form of panels, roundtable discussions, lectures, workshops and networking events.  

In addition, the BFN delegation had a meeting with Bernd Buder, Programme Director of the Cottbus Film Festival, to discuss concrete steps for Belarusian filmmakers to leave the territory of permanent uncertainty and integrate into the European film industry in a transparent and efficient way.

The programme of the festival included 18 sections. Two films by Belarusian directors, namely It's All Right by Anton Zhuk and Live (Na Żywo) by Mara Tamkovich took part in the short film competition section. Anton Zhuk won the main short film prize.  

Leonid Kalitenya comments: "Representatives of the BFN  participated in coco for the first time. This was possible thanks to the Federal Foreign Office, which supports BFN in 2023 under the Eastern Partnership programme. We gained valuable experience in building relations with our European colleagues and hope to cooperate with them in the future".