Gravehopping – the Best Film in Cottbus

17. November 2005
At the 15th East European Film Festival in the German city of Cottbus the director Jan Cvitkovič received the Main Award of the Festival Jury for the best feature film of the festival for his second feature film.

Besides the Main Award of the Festival, GRAVEHOPPING also received the Award for Best Film of the Festival according to the ecumenical jury. The main Festival Jury consisted of the president, the German film director Andreas Dresen (he received the Award for Best Script for his film Sommer vom Balkon at this year's festival in San Sebastian), Hungarian film actress Dorka Gryllus, Polish filmmaker and screenwriter Maciej Karpinski, Croatian-French producer Èedomir Kolar and Nadia Turincev from Russia.

The festival jury was unanimous in its decision to give the Award for Best Film to Jan Cvitkovič. The monetary part of the award amounting to 15.000 Euros was donated by Gesellschaft zu Warnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrechten from Munich. In its explanation the Jury wrote: "From beginning to end, birth to death, laughter to tears, love to murder, this film takes us on a perilous journey, demanding courage from the director as well as the audience. It forces us to look at our own life experience and ask ourselves: are we performing in a comedy or drama? It asks difficult questions, makes us laugh in undoubtedly serious moments – and throughout its duration it does not lose its balance and skilfully avoids all traps of such an adventure. It relies on extraordinary actors and witty dialogues, brimming in absurdness and concise humour. As one of the film's protagonists would say, this film is not "contingent", but goes the whole nine yards to the bitter end, full of dramatic power and hope. The Jury is unanimous in its decision to give the Main Award for Best Film to GRAVEHOPPING from Slovenia."

The aforementioned awards are already the third and fourth international awards for GRAVEHOPPING.

It received the ALTADIS Award for Best First and Second Films at its world premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival in September, and the CentEast Award – the Best Film of the Festival according to film professionals – at the film festival in Warsaw.

After its successful premiere at the opening of the Ljubljana Film Festival, the cinematographic distribution of GRAVEHOPPING began on Thursday, 17 November, in Ljubljana, Maribor and Celje.

GRAVEHOPPING was produced by the STARAGARA production company from Ljubljana and co-produced by Propeler Film from Zagreb and Slovenian National Television. It was financially supported by the Film Fund of the Republic of Slovenia and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. Starring Gregor Bakoviæ, Drago Milinoviæ, Sonja Saviæ, Mojca Fatur in Brane Grubar.