goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will be welcoming a host of high-calibre guests for its 19^th edition: in addition to Krzysztof Zanussi, the subject of this year’s Homage, multi-award-winning director Sergei Loznitsa will also be paying a visit to Wiesbaden, where he will be giving audience members special insight into his experiences in a master class open to the general public. Croatian actor Leon Lučev is slated to be on hand at the festival to present his directorial debut. Furthermore, filmmaker Helke Misselwitz is paying a visit to Wiesbaden.

Alongside these happy highlights, goEast will also be paying a farewell tribute to two recently departed fellow travellers from the world of Eastern European film: Lithuanian-American avant-garde legend Jonas Mekas and Yugoslavian-Serbian filmmaker Dušan Makavejev.

The Specials section once again promises a variety of events, including the traditional Matinee, where actor Kida Khodr Ramadan will be presenting KANUN (Germany, 2018), his first outing as a director, the Schools goEast programme and the finest genre films from Central and Eastern Europe, selected this year in co- operation with the Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival. Finally, the exhibition “Eastern Fairy Tales”, featuring the work of photographer Frank Herfort, provides unfamiliar glimpses into life in the post-Soviet republics.

Special Guests in Wiesbaden: Sergei Loznitsa // Leon Lučev // Helke Misselwitz 

The annual master class, open to the general public for the first time this year, will be given by Sergei Loznitsa. The Ukrainian director and screenwriter gained notoriety starting in the mid 1990s for his documentary films treating Soviet history. His most recent film THE TRIAL (PROTSESS, Netherlands, 2018) also takes up this subject and will be featured in the goEast programme. Aside from his documentary work, Loznitsa is also a prolific director of fiction features whose films have been honoured in Cannes, among other places.

Leon Lučev is an established star in front of the camera, not only in his native Croatia, but in all of the former Yugoslav republics as well. At goEast, Lučev will be presenting his first effort behind the camera, the short film I CAN BARELY REMEMBER THE DAY (MALO SE SJEĆAM TOG DANA, Croatia, 2018). This film, which revolves around a man who is confronted with the death of his father on his daughter’s birthday, will be shown as an entry in the RheinMain Short Film Competition.

In addition, director Helke Misselwitz will be making an appearance in Wiesbaden. Misselwitz began her career in the GDR, where she studied with Heiner Carow; from 1997 to 2014, she held a professorship for direction at the Academy for Film and Television in Babelsberg. Her cinematic work often focuses on the fates of female protagonists. goEast will show her fiction feature LITTLE ANGEL (ENGELCHEN, Germany, 1996), about a young woman’s search for happiness, which received the German Critics’ Award in 1997.

Specials:   Matinee with Kida Khodr Ramadan // Schools goEast // Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival

The name Kida Khodr Ramadan was on everyone’s lips last year for his gripping portrayal of Ali “Toni” Hamady in the award-winning German series 4 BLOCKS. Now the celebrated actor is coming to goEast to present his directorial debut KANUN (Germany, 2018) at the traditional Matinee. In Ramadan’s film, an old, re-enflamed feud between two families calls for a vendetta according to the eponymous unwritten Albanian law of “kanun”.

At Schools goEast, a new joint project from goEast and Wiesbaden’s school board, school students will get to know Central and Eastern European film in the scope of cinema and museum visits and learn to engage critically with the medium of film.

This year’s programme includes BLOSSOM VALLEY by Hungarian director László Csuja. Csuja, who studied under Oscar®-nominated director Ildikó Enyedi (goEast jury president in 2018), tells the story of two teenagers making their way through Hungary with a kidnapped baby in this novel take on the road movie genre.

The goEast Specials promise first-rate cinema experiences once again, presented this year by the Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival. This festival, which takes place in summer and transforms Croatia’s capital into a gathering place for fans of fantastic cinema and related genres such as science fiction, horror and thrillers, will also provide for plenty of goose bumps in Wiesbaden – the programme includes a late night cinema screening of the Serbian science fiction film EDERLEZI RISING, featuring feminist adult film actress Stoya in the lead role.

In Memoriam: Jonas Mekas // Dušan Makavejev

goEast bids farewell to Lithuanian-born cinema master Jonas Mekas, who passed away on January 23^rd 2019 at the age of 96. Before going on to collaborate with creative giants like Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, John Lennon and Salvador Dalí in New York City of the 1960s and 70s and making a lasting impact on the American film scene with his experimental films and archive projects, Mekas lived for a time in Wiesbaden directly after the end of World War Two as a displaced person, while studying philosophy at the University of Mainz.

goEast is also paying tribute to Dušan Makavejev, a significant representative of Yugoslavian auteur cinema, whose contributions were central in defining the style of the Yugoslav Black Wave. In the early 1970s, his film about psychoanalyst and human sexuality researcher Wilhelm Reich, entitled W.R. – MISTERIJE ORGANIZMA (WR

– MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM, Yugoslavia, 1971), attracted considerable international attention. The film was banned in Yugoslavia and director Makavejev was threatened with a prison sentence. goEast would like to bid a fond farewell to Dušan Makavejev, who passed away in Belgrade on January 25^th 2019.

Photo Exhibition: “Eastern Fairy Tales” by Frank Herfort In his pictures, German photographer Frank Herfort searches out clichés in everyday situations in Russia and Eastern Europe and debunks them with refreshingly incongruous stylistic choices: traditional “babushkas” and vodka swigging men on sleds collide with modern architecture or advertising billboards. Frank Herfort’s photographs possess a cinematic quality and each of his images tells a story – his “Eastern Fairy Tales”, on display at Museum Wiesbaden from April 10^th to 16^th, are at times epic, at times touching, often beautiful, and occasionally even downright bizarre.

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.