Thematic Focus: “Everything Remains Different? – The Wild 90s” // “Pan-European Picnic”: Literature, Music Videos and Ukrainian Hip-Hop from alyona alyona // Opening Film: GOD EXISTS, HER NAME IS PETRUNYA by Director and goEast Jury President Teona Strugar Mitevska // Press Accreditation Available Until March 29th // goEast Press Conference on April 4th

Thematic Focus: “Everything Remains Different? – The Wild 90s” In November, Germany is due to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Especially in the capital a multitude of events are planned along the “Route of Revolution”. goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, is already taking up the topic of this momentous transition this spring – and directing attention far eastwards beyond Berlin. What did the fall of the Iron Curtain mean for the formerly socialist countries of Europe? How did the collapse of an entire political system and the accompanying establishment of a new order find expression in the films of the early 1990s? The film and talk series “Everything Remains Different? – The Wild 90s”, a joint project from goEast and FilmFestival Cottbus, funded by the Federal Foundation for the Study of Communist Dictatorship in East Germany, will examine these questions. Featured here are works that shed light on the challenges of ordinary people in a world turned upside down, such as Lucian Pintilie’s THE OAK (BALANTJA, Romania, France, 1992) or István Szabó’s SWEET EMMA, DEAR BÖBE (ÉDES EMMA, DRÁGA BÖBE, Hungary, Germany, 1991). Alongside them, films devoted to topics that seemed unscreenable during the reign of state socialism, such as Wojciech Marczewski’s ESCAPE FROM “LIBERTY” CINEMA (UCIECZKA Z KINA “WOLNOŚĆ”, Poland, 1990) will be featured. The “wild 90s” oscillated between the poles of euphoria regarding newly gained freedoms and the hard reality of a global market economy – it is not only in the East that many individuals look back at this era today, 30 years later, and feel that their personal experiences have not been represented or are neglected entirely. In the scope of the interdisciplinary panel “What Went Wrong in the Nineties?”, filmmakers, journalists and scholars from the fields of political science and history will tackle this multifaceted topic.

“Pan-European Picnic”: Literature on Wiesbaden’s Funicular Rail Line // “Music Videos Are Back!” // alyona alyona in concert

In summer 1989, a peace demonstration staged by artists and activists managed to open the border between Austria and Hungary for a couple hours – around 700 East German citizens vacationing at Lake Balaton took advantage of the occasion to emigrate spontaneously to the West. On this afternoon, art overcame borders – goEast is celebrating this event with its very own “Pan-European Picnic”. In addition to a genuine picnic, during which Wiesbaden’s Schlossplatz square will be transformed into a place for encounters between international festival guests, cultural associations representing local Eastern European life and the Wiesbaden

audience, the programme features the photo exhibition “Eastern Fairy Tales” as well as a literary excursion on Wiesbaden’s Nerobergbahn funicular train line, during which actor Ivan Shvedoff, a familiar face from the series Babylon Berlin, will be reading in German, English and Russian from Venedikt Yerofeyev’s cult novel “Moscow-Petushki“. In the spirit of Yerofeyev, a vodka tasting will take place at the halfway point of the journey. In addition, with the programme “Music Videos Are Back!” goEast is paying tribute to the artistic combination of music and moving images. Thanks to their dissemination via alternative media channels such as YouTube, music videos today have the potential to communicate subversive, critical or politically uncomfortable messages while reaching a wide audience. In countries like Russia and Hungary, where media and state cultural subsidies are more strongly regulated, video clips (not long ago nearly laid to rest in the wake of the on-going crisis in the digital music industry) are enjoying a resurgence. goEast is showing twelve music videos, including works from Russia’s gothic rap duo IC3PEAK and rapper Husky, who regularly struggle with performance bans or even arrest in their native country. Ukrainian rapper alyona alyona is also represented here – her concert at Schlachthof Wiesbaden also promises to make the place shake with fat beats and critical lyrics. The 27-year-old was still a pre-school teacher until recently, up to the point where her YouTube videos started to break through the 2-million-view mark regularly. She’s seen as the new hope of the Ukrainian music scene: with her flow, attitude and lyrics as socially critical as they are self-ironic, alyona alyona has already won over a huge fan block. goEast is thrilled to present the first German performance of the Ukrainian hip-hop phenomena.

Jury President Teona Strugar Mitevska // Opening Film: GOD EXISTS, HER NAME IS PETRUNYA This year’s goEast Jury will be chaired by Teona Strugar Mitevska. The multi-award- winning Macedonian director is also the creator of this year’s opening film GOD EXISTS, HER NAME IS PETRUNYA (GOSPOD POSTOI, IMETO I’ E PETRUNIJA, North Macedonia, Belgium, Slovenia, Croatia, France, 2019), a black comedy in which a young woman fights back against the patriarchal domination of society. In the film, per an Epiphany tradition a priest throws a cross into a river and a throng of young men dive in after it. Petrunya tumbles head over heels into the cold water too and somehow manages to pop back to the surface cross in hand. This causes a genuine scandal in her small town. Mitevska’s film was honoured with the Award of the Ecumenical Jury for Best Film in the Competition section at this year’s Berlinale.

Accreditation and Press Conference Members of the press can still receive accreditation for goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film until 29 March by registering at: www.filmfestival-goeast.de/en/Press/accreditation.php The press conference for the 19th edition of goEast will take place at 11 am on 4 April at Wiesbaden’s Caligari FilmBühne cinema. Please RSVP to attend the event.

Festival images are available for download at: www.filmfestival-goeast.de/de/presse/downloads.php

The full programme for the 19th edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will be announced in the beginning of April.

goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film is hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and supported by numerous partners. The festival is primarily funded by the State Capital Wiesbaden, the Hessen State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland, Renovabis, BHF BANK Foundation, Adolf und Luisa Haeuser-Stiftung für Kunst und Kulturpflege, the Federal Foreign Office and Deutsch-Tschechische Zukunftsfonds. Media partners include among others 3sat, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

For more information, please contact:

Ulrike Mascher Press & Public Relations This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. phone: +49-611-236 843-16

HOST: DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film Schaumainkai 41 D-60596 Frankfurt am Main

goEast Festival Office Friedrichstraße 32 D-65185 Wiesbaden phone: +49-611-236 843-0 fax: +49-611-236 843-49 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.filmfestival-goEast.de