With its multi-faceted programme, featuring film screenings, workshops, exhibitions and panel discussions, goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, is equally aimed at local cinema fans, experts from the industry and academia and guests from around the world, and sees itself as a vital platform for culture from the post-socialist cosmos.

Pan-European Picnic

What kicked off in earnest thirty years ago in Berlin on 9 November heralded the end of an era that had seen Europe, and the world at large, divided into two parts. However a tiny hole had already been torn in the Iron Curtain back in August of 1989 through an at first glance unremarkable art intervention staged by peace activists: at their “Pan-European Picnic”, the border crossing between Hungary and Austria was opened for several hours and many East German citizens who happened to be vacationing at Lake Balaton were able to make their way into the West. This year, with the generous support of Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, goEast is dedicating a series of events to this singular occurrence, a series that is all about transcending borders, between East and West as well as between the disciplines of film, literature and fine art. Included among the planned events is a genuine picnic too, to be held at Wiesbaden’s Schlossplatz square, where festival guests, cultural creators and Wiesbaden residents can come together.

Symposium: Constructions of the Other – Roma and the Cinema of Central and Eastern Europe

This year’s Symposium, which international film scholars, members of the cultural sector and filmmakers are invited to attend, deals with a controversial complex of topics: On one hand “Gypsy” stereotypes from the world of cinema will be subjected to a critical re-examination, spanning from the Third Reich to Emir Kusturica. On the other hand, films made by Roma filmmakers and the lived realities of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe will be placed in the focus. The film retrospective is framed by a series of lectures which aim to take a close critical look at the various (film-)historical, socio-political and cultural aspects of this thematic field.

Homage: Krzysztof Zanussi

In the Homage section, goEast is honouring the venerable master of the Polish New Wave, Krzysztof Zanussi, with an extensive retrospective. The multi-award-winning director and screenwriter, celebrated by critics as the “Polish Godard”, is celebrating his 80^th birthday this year and is among the most important filmmakers of his generation. In 2001, Zanussi served as the first jury president at goEast and he will be returning to Wiesbaden in 2019 to present classics such as STRUKTURA KRYSZTAŁU (THE STRUCTURE OF CRYSTAL, 1969), ILUMINACJA (ILLUMINATION, 1972) alongside his most recent work ETER (ETHER, 2018).

Support for Young Filmmakers: RheinMain Short Film Award

// East-West Talent Lab // Renovabis Grant

Two new prizes and the training programme East-West Talent Lab are intended to enable up-and-coming filmmakers to realise innovative project ideas. For the first time, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain is presenting the RheinMain Short Film Award (endowed with 2,500 euros in prize money), which will go to the winner of the newly established short film competition. The jury is composed of members of cultural associations focusing on Central and Eastern Europe from the Rhine-Main area. Since the early 1990s, Renovabis has been committed to social renewal in the post-socialist countries – this year, the charity has chosen to establish and award a 3,500 euro research grant for documentary projects tackling the topics of human rights and minority rights. Starting this year, the goEast Development Award for the best project pitch in the East-West Talent Lab (also endowed with 3,500 euros in prize money) is made possible with the support of Russian Standard Vodka.

Dziga Vertov’s ANNIVERSARY OF THE REVOLUTION and Other Archive Treasures

In addition to current productions from Central and Eastern Europe, historical films and archive works have traditionally occupied a prominent place in the goEast programme. One particularly bright highlight in this regard in 2018 is the German premiere of ANNIVERSARY OF THE REVOLUTION (GODOVSHINA REVOLYUCII, USSR, 1918) by documentary film pioneer Dziga Vertov. The film, which is possibly the first feature- length documentary in cinema history, and which was considered lost for many years, has been meticulously reconstructed by Russian film historian Nikolai Izvolov. In the scope of a workshop talk, Izvolov will provide insight into his work on this reconstructed version of Vertov’s film.

In the scope of the Symposium, among other films, Bauhaus artist László Moholy- Nagy’s dynamic work BIG CITY GYPSIES (Germany, 1932) will be shown. In addition, two important archive montages will be making their way to the screen as well. First, THE TRIAL (PROTSESS, Netherlands, 2018), in which Belarusian director Sergei Loznitsa employs archive materials from Soviet show trials held in 1930. Loznitsa is scheduled to attend the festival and will also give a master class. Finally, in their enchanting archive montage BRIDGES OF TIME (LAIKA TILTI, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, 2018) Audrius Stonys and Kristīne Briede pay tribute to the poetic Baltic school of documentary filmmaking.

The following grants were announced by the Czech Film Fund on 13 February 2019.

We are very pleased to announce MIDPOINT´s intensive program in Kaunas, Lithuania (May 5 – 8, 2019) aimed at Lithuanian film professionals. Thanks to a partnership with Lithuanian Film Centre, this 4-day workshop has been made possible.

Identity and the various forms it takes in the globalized world of the 21st century – this is the subject explored by this year’s One World film festival under the motto Safe Proximity. In addition to its traditional competitions and thematic categories, the festival program will thus also include two categories on the subject of searching for and defining one’s identity – both individual and on across society. “The protagonists of these films are either struggling to figure out where they belong, or they know it but find it difficult to understand their surroundings or society. Some of their stories take place on the other side of the planet, but thanks to film we learn that we have much in common,” says the festival’s programming director Ondřej Moravec. This year’s 21st One World film festival is held in Prague from 6 to 17 March and subsequently in another 35 cities throughout the Czech Republic.

‘Oh, Ramona’ Romanian feature film, directed by Cristina Jacob, with a script based on Andrei Ciobanu’s bestseller, beat all audience records for a Romanian production, the cinemas reporting 111,881 entries in the opening weekend, a record for a Romanian opening weekend for the past 30 years.