Festivals and celebrationsEuropeSecular and civic
CinEast
An October film festival in Luxembourg showing new cinema from Central and Eastern Europe
CinEast is an annual non-profit film festival held each October at venues around Luxembourg, showing recent cinema from Central and Eastern Europe. Features, documentaries, animations and shorts screen alongside concerts, exhibitions, debates and food events, and an official competition has run since 2010.
When is CinEast kept?
CinEast is kept every year in October, over roughly two and a half weeks.
Each October, Luxembourg's cinemas turn their screens east. For about three weeks, CinEast gathers new feature films, documentaries, animations and shorts from the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, with concerts, debates and exhibitions around them. Run by a small non-profit, it has grown from four countries in 2008 to nineteen, and recent editions have drawn more than eleven thousand festival-goers.
What it shows
CinEast, pronounced 'Ciné East', is Luxembourg's yearly window on filmmaking from Central and Eastern Europe, the region once called the Eastern Bloc. The programme centres on recent feature films but gives equal space to standout documentaries, animated works and shorts. Screenings are only part of it: concerts, exhibitions, debates and food events run alongside, and each festival backs a charity project. An official competition has been part of the programme since 2010, and a limited online offer, CinEast Online Cinema, has kept the festival reachable beyond the cinemas since the pandemic years.
How it grew
The festival traces back to Polish Film Days, held in Luxembourg in 2006. Its first edition, in October 2008, was then called the Central European Film Festival of Luxembourg and showed films from four countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, all screened at the Abbaye de Neumünster. Luxembourg's Cinémathèque joined as a second main venue in 2009, and in 2010 the festival took the name CinEast, nearly doubled in size and staged its first competition. The list of countries kept growing: Bulgaria arrived in 2011, the Baltic states, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia in 2012, and by 2014 the programme reached eighteen countries, including Ukraine and Moldova.
Prizes and juries
Three juries shape the awards. An international jury of filmmakers, producers and actors, headed in past years by directors such as Sergei Loznitsa, Radu Jude, Patrice Leconte, Alexander Nanau and Danis Tanović, awards the Grand Prix and a Special Jury Prize. A press jury has chosen a Critics' Prize since the eighth edition. Since 2021 a Young Talents jury, guided each year by the Luxembourgish director Eric Lamhène, has given its own award. Festival-goers vote too: Audience Awards honour a feature film and the best fiction, animated and documentary shorts.
Themes and focus
Every edition carries a theme that ties the programme together. Recent ones include Identities in 2018, Down with Walls in 2019, Planting the Future in 2020, Dreams of Escape in 2021, Communities in 2022, Adaptations in 2023, United We Stand in 2024 and Disruptions in 2025. Alongside the theme, many years single out one country for special attention: Latvia in 2018, Lithuania in 2019, Hungary in 2020, Slovenia in 2021, Czechia in 2022, Ukraine in 2023, Croatia in 2024 and Poland in 2025. The 2023 focus on Ukraine also turned attention to war refugees.
Today and change
The Covid-19 years reshaped the festival. The 2020 edition ran as a hybrid, mixing limited-capacity cinema screenings with online viewing, and drew about 6,450 participants; the online programme has stayed on since, next to regular shows. Numbers have climbed back: 10,450 visitors in 2023, 10,550 in 2024 and a record 11,500 at the eighteenth edition in 2025. That year the festival also added a three-day Warm-up Weekend as a prelude, followed by a two-day break before the opening and an eleven-day main block. The nineteenth edition is set for 9 to 25 October 2026, in the same format.
How CinEast is kept
Organised by the non-profit CinEast asbl, the festival runs each October at venues across Luxembourg. A Warm-up Weekend opens proceedings, then after a two-day break comes the official opening and an eleven-day main block. Screenings take place in cinemas, with a limited parallel programme online. Each edition follows a theme and often highlights one focus country. An international jury awards the Grand Prix, a press jury the Critics' Prize and a Young Talents jury its own award, while audiences vote for their favourites. Concerts, exhibitions, debates and food events surround the films, and each festival supports a charity project.
When and where
The festival is held every year in October. Since 2025 its shape has been a three-day Warm-up Weekend, a two-day break, the official opening, then an eleven-day main block, so the whole run lasts about two and a half weeks. The 2026 edition is scheduled for 9 to 25 October.
CinEast is staged at different venues around Luxembourg. The first edition used the Abbaye de Neumünster, and Luxembourg's Cinémathèque became a second main venue in 2009. Since the pandemic, a limited online programme, the CinEast Online Cinema, has run beside the cinema screenings.
What CinEast means
For its organisers and audiences, the festival is a meeting point between Luxembourg and the filmmaking of Central and Eastern Europe, a region once grouped as the Eastern Bloc. Each year's theme frames that conversation: recent cycles have looked at walls and their falling, at communities, at escape and at adaptation. The 2023 edition dedicated its focus to Ukraine and to war refugees.
Questions people ask about CinEast
When is CinEast kept?
CinEast is kept every year in October, over roughly two and a half weeks.
What is CinEast?
An annual non-profit film festival in Luxembourg, dedicated to current films from Central and Eastern Europe, the region once called the Eastern Bloc. It shows recent features alongside documentaries, animated works and shorts, with concerts, exhibitions, debates, food events and support for a charity project.
Where is it held?
At various venues around Luxembourg. The first edition screened films at the Abbaye de Neumünster, and Luxembourg's Cinémathèque became the second main venue in 2009. A limited online programme, the CinEast Online Cinema, has run alongside the cinema screenings since the pandemic.
Which countries does it cover?
It began in 2008 with films from four countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The selection grew to twelve countries by 2012 and eighteen by 2014, taking in the Baltic states, the former Yugoslavia, Ukraine and Moldova, and reached nineteen with Albania in 2017.
Who gives out the prizes?
An international jury of directors, producers and actors awards the Grand Prix and Special Jury Prize. A press jury has chosen the Critics' Prize since the eighth edition, a Young Talents jury has awarded its prize since 2021, and audiences vote for the Audience Awards.
See also
SinterklaasA Dutch winter feast on 5 and 6 December, when Saint Nicholas brings gifts to children
SchueberfouerAn annual late-summer funfair and historic fair held in Luxembourg City
EmaischenAn Easter Monday market in Luxembourg known for small bird-shaped clay whistles
CandlemasA Christian feast of candle blessings marking the end of the Christmas seasonGood reading and sources
The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "CinEast", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). EveryParampara rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.
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