# Cottbus puts a fully AI-generated feature in its main competition

A Woman Asleep, an 80-minute film from Turkey, is one of ten features in competition and screens on 4 and 7 November.

Published 22 October 2026 by EuGFA in The Briefing. Interests: Screen and exhibition.

## What happened

The 36th FilmFestival Cottbus, a festival of East European cinema, runs 3 to 8 November 2026. Its programme, online since 15 October, lists A Woman Asleep by Vikki Bardot among the ten films in the Feature Film Competition. The festival's film page calls it fully AI-generated, narrated by an AI clone of the director's voice and loosely based on Georges Perec's novel A Man Asleep.

The film comes from Spongeworthy Studio, a Turkish AI studio, and screens at Filmtheater Weltspiegel on 4 November at 18:15 and 7 November at 13:30 CET.

## Why it matters

For makers of long generated films, the selection shows an established competition judging one in its main ten-film section, not in a separate AI strand. The festival's 2026 regulations contain no rule on AI use or disclosure, so no separate condition applies to A Woman Asleep.

Programmers can see the studio's earlier film, Post Truth by Alkan Avcıoğlu, in the Spectrum section on 4 November at 12:30 or 5 November at 21:15.

## Still open

The awards page lists the Main Prize for best film, donated by Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg, without an amount. A Niederlausitz Aktuell report of 20 October attributes to the festival the claim that it is the first fully AI-generated feature in the main competition of an established international festival. The festival's own pages do not make that claim.

## Read further

- [A Woman Asleep, FilmFestival Cottbus](https://filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program/movies/a-woman-asleep)
- [Awards, FilmFestival Cottbus](https://filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/festival/awards)
- [Regulations, FilmFestival Cottbus](https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program-en/film-submission/regulations.html?rCH=2)