Press Information
11th March 2015


15th goEast Film Festival in Wiesbaden Expands Its Commitment to Fostering Young Talent with the Innovative Project Young Filmmakers for Peace

This year goEast - Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will feature not one but two dedicated programmes for the fostering of young filmmakers.
The festival, hosted by Deutsches Filminstitut, will celebrate its 15th edition from 22nd to 28th April 2015 in Wiesbaden, Germany.

New at goEast 2015: Young Filmmakers for Peace
goEast is expanding its own existing efforts to promote young filmmakers this year with the launch of the pilot project Young Filmmakers for Peace, which is made possible by the kind support of the Robert Bosch Stiftung. goEast has invited twelve up-and-coming filmmakers from Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, former Yugoslavia and Germany to attend lectures and workshops revolving around the question of what it means to make films about conflicts or under the conditions of violent conflict. goEast is pleased to announce that, among others, directors Tamara Trampe (Germany), George Ovashvili (Georgia), Marina Razbezhkina (Russia) and Ines Tanovic (Bosnia-Herzegovina) have signed on to serve as mentors to the young artists. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to take part in individual events of the East-West Talent Lab, which runs parallel to Young Filmmakers for Peace, in order to be able to make further connections with other young filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe and Germany and to extend their professional networks.
Young Filmmakers for Peace is complemented thematically by the festival section Beyond Belonging, whose 16 films are devoted to the theme "Films against War: On Trauma and Reconciliation".

East-West Talent Lab
After last year's successful launch, the East-West Talent Lab, realised with the support of Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain and the BHF-BANK Foundation, is set to go into its second round. More than 30 young filmmakers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, the Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Belarus and Germany have been selected to exchange their project ideas, to develop them further and to expand the horizons of their knowledge and creativity.
A large number of workshops and master classes conducted under the guidance of international film experts will impart core skills and provide both insight into the film industry as well as into the production of experimental films and video art.
Select Lab participants will present their project ideas to a three-member expert jury on Monday 27th April from 10.00 to 13.00 in a pitching session open to the public, in which they will also be competing for the goEast Development Award, with its prize money of 3,500 euros.
In addition, 13 Lab participants have been nominated for the Open Frame Award for their experimental film and video work. The prize, endowed with 5,000 euros by the BHF-BANK Foundation, is awarded by a prestigious jury in the Experimental Film and Video Art Competition. The focus of the competition is on both aesthetically innovative and stylistically and thematically surprising works.
The Open Frame Screening will take place on Thursday 23rd April at 16.00, with the accompanying Open Frame Exhibition Opening in Museum Wiesbaden following closely afterwards at 18.00.
The East-West Talent Lab will be topped off by a panel discussion. Under the title "Finding the Right Audience for Your Work" representatives from the film, TV and art worlds will debate about the possibilities for marketing the work of up-and-coming filmmakers and video artists on Tuesday 28th April from 11.00 to 13.00.

15th Annual goEast Film Festival from 22nd to 28th April 2015 in Wiesbaden
Filmmaking in time of war is one of the core themes of this year's edition of goEast - Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, which will take place for the 15th time from 22nd to 28th April in Wiesbaden, Germany. Every year since 2001, the festival, hosted by Deutsches Filminstitut, has presented cinematic work from Central and Eastern Europe in all its great diversity. Whether unconventional auteur films or mainstream productions, features or documentaries - the selected works are impressive cinematic feats, most of which have yet to be discovered by the Western film market.
The richness of Central and Eastern European auteur cinema is on display in the 16 contributions selected for the Competition for Fiction Features and Documentaries. Moving, idiosyncratic and ground-breaking productions paint a nuanced portrait of the societies of Eastern Europe.

Current images for the festival can be downloaded at:
http://www.filmfestival-goeast.de/presse

Applications for festival accreditation for representatives of the press interested in covering the festival can be found at: http://www.filmfestival-goeast.de/presse

goEast - Festival of Central and Eastern European Film is hosted by Deutsches Filminstitut and is supported by numerous partners. The main supporters are the Hessen State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts, the State Capital Wiesbaden, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland, the BHF-BANK Foundation, the Adolf und Luisa Haeuser-Stiftung für Kunst und Kulturpflege and the Federal Foreign Office. Our media partners are among others 3sat, the FAZ, hr-iNFO and the city magazine sensor.

More information at: www.filmfestival-goeast.de