10/10/2025 - The Luxembourgish festival championing Central and Eastern European cinema will open with the international premiere of Chopin, A Sonata in Paris and boasts more than 120 screenings

The 18th annual CinÉast - Central and Eastern European Film Festival (10-26 October) is about to kick off in Luxembourg, rolling out over a fortnight with more than 120 screenings lined up. The festival will open formally on 15 October with the international premiere of Chopin, A Sonata in Paris by Michał Kwiecinski.

Sixty-five feature films and 50 shorts from 20 Central and Eastern European countries will screen during the festival. CinÉast’s Focus on Poland will include 14 features, three shorts, two concerts and more, while the special Ukrainian programme highlights five documentaries, a cine-concert and a charity project. The gathering also champions five Luxembourgish co-productions within its line-up.

Seven acclaimed films are competing in the official competition for a slate of prizes: Girl America [+see also:
film review
interview: Viktor Tauš
film profile] by Viktor Tauš, Father [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile] by Tereza Nvotová, God Will Not Help by Hana Jušić, Little Trouble Girls [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Urška Djukić
film profile] by Urška Djukić, Milk Teeth [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mihai Mincan
film profile] by Mihai Mincan, Two Prosecutors [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sergei Loznitsa
film profile] by Sergei Loznitsa and Wind, Talk to Me [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefan Đorđević
film profile] by Stefan Đorđević. The international jury consists of Polish director Maria Zbąska, Luxembourgish actress Sascha Ley, Georgian director Akaki Popkhadze and Luxembourgish producer Adrien Chef, with the jury chaired by Bosnian helmer Danis Tanović. They will bestow the Grand Prix and Special Jury Prize upon two films at the end of the festival. The press jury, consisting of Olivia Popp, Hendrik Warnke and Valentin Maniglia, will hand out the Critics’ Prize for the competition.

Five debut or sophomore features will compete in the Young Talents Competition, with a jury made up of students from the BTS Cinéma et audiovisuel du Lycée des Arts et Métiers preparing to crown the winner of the section. The competing films are Renovation [+see also:
film review
interview: Gabrielė Urbonaitė
film profile] by Gabrielė Urbonaitė, Loss of Balance [+see also:
film review
interview: Korek Bojanowski
film profile] by Korek Bojanowski, DJ Ahmet [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Georgi M Unkovski
film profile] by Georgi M Unkovski, Sandbag Dam [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Čejen Černić Čanak
film profile] by Čejen Černić Čanak and Yugo Florida [+see also:
film review
interview: Vladimir Tagić
film profile] by Vladimir Tagić.

The festival’s non-competitive Cinéscope programme chronicles what the gathering calls “a selection of the most interesting recent films” from across the region, including Dea Kulumbegashvili’s stylistically idiosyncratic April [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dea Kulumbegashvili
film profile], about an obstetrician in rural Georgia; Vytautas Katkus’ oneiric debut feature, The Visitor [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Vytautas Katkus
interview: Vytautas Katkus
film profile]; and Radu Jude’s nearly three-hour AI fun-fest Dracula [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Radu Jude
film profile]. Meanwhile, the East Goes West strand features films that blur the titular boundary in different ways, including Alexandra Makarová’s 1980s-set return-to-homeland journey Perla [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexandra Makarová
film profile] and Zuzana Kirchnerová’s liberating road movie Caravan [+see also:
film review
interview: Zuzana Kirchnerová
film profile].

It’s also been a strong year for documentary winners around the world, as evidenced by the festival’s Cinédocs section. It includes the Karlovy Vary winner Better Go Mad in the Wild [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Miro Remo
film profile] by Miro Remo and the IFFR Tiger Competition laureate Fiume o morte! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Igor Bezinović; several Ukrainian movies also feature, notably the country’s Oscars submission, 2000 Meters to Andriivka [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], along with My Dear Théo [+see also:
film review
film profile] and Militantropos [+see also:
film review
interview: Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gor…
film profile].

The festival is rounded off by a hearty handful of debates, concerts, exhibitions and more celebrating the breadth of cultures and creativity from across the region.