As the director of a film festival focussing on Eastern Europe, goEast head Heleen Gerritsen cannot refrain from commenting on the current situation at the Russian-Ukrainian border:
"This morning, on 24 February 2022, Vladimir Putin ordered a large-scale attack at Ukraine; targeting cities throughout the whole country. The news leaves us speechless and angry. As a festival dedicated not only to the freedom of arts but also to exchange and dialogue, goEast has shown films from both Ukraine and Russia since its beginnings. It is my deep hope that there will be a de-escalation in the situation soon, and we will see a withdrawal of Russian troops. Our solidarity here, from the entire goEast team, goes out to the people in Ukraine.”
Now, goEast would like to share the following items on its upcoming festival edition:
goEast Homage to Lana Gogoberidze
Women's life stories are her speciality. 93-year-old Lana Gogoberidze made 13 films over the course of six decades and was one of the few female directors in the USSR who didn't reject the Western label of feminism. Lana Gogoberidze, daughter of cinema pioneer Nutsa Gogoberidze and mother of filmmaker Salomé Alexi, is the most significant female filmmaker to emerge from Georgia, and one of the most important of her generation the world over – responsible for international-award-winning works of Soviet cinema from the 1960s on, such as SOME INTERVIEWS ON PERSONAL MATTERS (Ramdenime interviu pirad sakitkhebze, USSR, 1978), DAY IS LONGER THAN NIGHT (Dges game utenebia, USSR, 1983) or WALTZ ON THE PETSCHORA (Valsi pechoraze, Georgia, 1992).
In honour of Lana Gogoberidze, goEast, in co-operation with Frankfurt's Kinothek Asta Nielsen and the Georgian National Film Center, is presenting a retrospective of her work, the first of its kind world-wide. The multifaceted programme, encompassing ten films, features political, feminist and highly autobiographical works, in which, among other things, Gogoberidze grapples with her own family history and the mark left on it by Stalinist terror. goEast looks forward to welcoming Lana Gogoberidze personally to the festival in April, along with her daughter Salomé Alexi, and speaking with her about her work in the scope of an extended Q&A.
Focus on Non-Fiction in the East-West Talent Lab
In 2022, goEast's educational programme for emerging talents is aimed at filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as from Germany, seeking an opportunity to further develop their current documentary film projects and extend their peer-to-peer networks. The East-West Talent Lab, co-ordinated by Andrea Wink, supports a total of 30 up-and-coming talents through an intensive workshop programme and one-on-one mentoring for 15 projects, before concluding with a public pitching session in front of a three-member expert jury.
Several prizes are awarded in the scope of the East-West Talent Lab:
- the Renovabis Research Grant, endowed with 3,500 euros in prize money, for a documentary film project with a thematic focus on human rights issues;
- The Current Time Award, endowed with 1,500 euros;
- the Pitch-the-Doc Award, featuring an educational prize package valued at 500 euros.
The festival organisers are delighted to welcome new sponsors for the East-West Talent Lab onboard this year: joining Renovabis, which has been supporting goEast's talent development efforts since 2018, are the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Current Time TV.
Aside from the public pitching session, a further highlight of this year's East-West Talent Lab is a masterclass with Polish director Paweł Łoziński (FATHER AND SON, 2013; YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU, 2016; THE BALCONY MOVIE, 2021), who will speak to the young filmmakers about his work as a documentary film director. The masterclass is also open to the general public.
Merck Supports New Work-in-Progress Programme for Virtual & Extended Reality
goEast has featured a bespoke competition for virtual reality works since 2018, which has, however, up until now solely shown completed VR projects in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt. Now the festival is set to take on a new challenge – with a programme and accompanying competition exclusively intended for work-in-progress and collaborative projects in the fields of virtual and extended reality:
"The Work-in-Progress Competition is a brilliant opportunity to present Central and Eastern European works to a wider global audience, to honour the most deserving among them and to guarantee a high degree of exposure for the rest of the projects." - Georgy Molodtsov, VR curator at goEast
The declared goal here is to promote new talents from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as students from Germany, who are united by a common passion for VR and XR. Within the programme, the selected participants will receive assistance in their search for further opportunities to fund their projects.
This programme is made possible for goEast thanks to the support of the Darmstadt-based company Merck as a new sponsor, which is endowing the Merck Innovation Award for XR for the first time this year, to be presented by an independent jury. As a leading science and technology enterprise, Merck itself employs VR and XR technology in diverse sectors, and thus wishes to encourage goEast's efforts in the field in the scope of a cultural sponsorship.
"With the new programme and the associated Merck Innovation Award for XR, we would like to support young filmmakers in exploring and developing the potential of these technologies, as we believe that especially in the cultural sphere these new forms of experiencing reality are capable of generating lasting and sustained experiences for the audience," explains Dirk Sulzmann, director of community relations at Merck and responsible for the company's sponsoring activities.
In addition to the work-in-progress programme, in co-operation with teams from Central and Eastern Europe as well as Darmstadt's University of Applied Sciences, the festival will create an interactive goEast environment. In the scope of exhibitions in Darmstadt and Wiesbaden, visitors will be able to experience this creation, alongside a selection of work-in-progress projects.
goEast Trailer 2022: THE RULES OF THE GAME by Radu Jude
Romanian director Radu Jude, Berlinale multi-award-winner (AFERIM!, 2015; BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN, 2021), has created the trailer for this year's goEast Film Festival. The nearly one-minute film shows representatives of the Hohenzollern noble family during a hunting trip in Romania, drawn from archival reels from 1935, set to the cheerful tones of waltz music. The whole thing alludes to the hunting scene from Jean Renoir's LA RÈGLE DU JEU (1939). In this piece of found footage, East and West come together symbolically. The trailer can be seen in cinemas in Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Mainz, Darmstadt and Gießen beginning in March, as well as online on goEast’s various channels from 25 February.
Accreditation
Members of the press can now register here for an accreditation for goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film. During the festival week, accredited industry guests and members of the press receive access to an online media library featuring productions from the festival programme.
You can find images related to the festival in the download section.
The full programme for the 22nd edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will be announced in late March.
goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film is hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and made possible with the support of numerous partners. Primary funding partners are HessenFilm und Medien GmbH, the State Capital Wiesbaden, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Renovabis, Merck, CEEOL and Deutsch-Tschechische Zukunftsfonds. Media partners include 3sat, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
