Portrait of Boris Khlebnikov // Symposium: Hybrid Identities – Baltic Cinema // Prague 1968 // Virtual Reality

goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film (taking place from 18 to 24 April 2018 in Wiesbaden, Germany) will set out in its 18th edition on a search for cinematic identity – in the past, present and future. While the goEast Symposium is poised to celebrate 100 years of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the special program Prague 1968 will look back 50 years to the events of the Prague Spring. This year’s goEast Portrait is devoted to Russian filmmaker Boris Khlebnikov, whose work has captured the feel of Putin-era Russia perhaps better than any other contemporary director. goEast will also once again offer young filmmakers numerous opportunities to present their work and develop new projects.
Hosted by Deutsches Filminstitut, goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film boasts a multifaceted program featuring film screenings, workshops, exhibitions and panel discussions. The festival is a favourite among local and trade audiences alike and is attended by guests from around the world. The following are some of this year’s most anticipated highlights:

Portrait: Boris Khlebnikov
goEast and Boris Khlebnikov go back a long way together. In 2004, Khlebnikov won the Golden Lilly for Best Film together with Alexey Popogrebsky for his feature film debut KOKTEBEL. Khlebnikov has long since established himself as a giant of contemporary Russian cinema, not only at goEast – he regularly appears as a guest at other international film festivals around the world as well. Full of quiet humour, Boris Khlebnikov’s films depict life in the backcountry, far removed from the decadence of the capital city. His characters are united by the constant struggle to overcome everyday life, which is often characterised by unemployment, alcoholism and trouble with the law. His protagonists’ humanity remains nonetheless clearly recognizable throughout. While the transitional chaos of the 1990s in Russia is still very palpable in his early works, in his more recent films bureaucracy reveals itself to be a growing obstacle. goEast screens SUMASSHEDSHAYA POMOSHCH (HELP GONE MAD, 2009) and ARITMIYA (ARRHYTHMIA, 2017) among others. Boris Khlebnikov has expressed his intention to attend the festival, accompanied by one of his long-time creative partners, actor Aleksander Yatsenko.

Symposium: Hybrid Identities – Baltic Cinema
goEast takes a look at 100 years of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The mile markers of this year’s goEast Symposium are represented by the declarations of independence of the years 1918 and 1990 – in between lie first German and then Soviet foreign occupation, authoritarian state regimes and struggles for freedom. Under the title “Hybrid Identities: Baltic Cinema” the Symposium invites attendees to take part in numerous lectures and discussions, for instance on the criticism of poetic realism and questions concerning power relationships and the search for national and cultural identity. A carefully curated film program accompanies the Symposium: among other things goEast will screen a unique restored 35mm copy of Uldis Brauns’ 235,000,000 (1967) as well as an exquisite selection of Estonian animated films from the world’s oldest animated film factory, Nukufilm Studios. Guests include Latvian filmmaker Laila Pakalniņa, Lithuania’s Audrius Stonys and Mait Laas from Estonia.
The Symposium is organised in collaboration with the national film institutes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Prague 1968 
50 years of the Prague Spring – high time for a cinematic reappraisal. For this year’s special program, a shift in perspective occupies the foreground: goEast will show works from the Czech New Wave, documentary films and even bring Soviet propaganda material to the big screen. The highlight is sure to be the world premiere of the extraordinary film project OCCUPATION 1968 (2017), realised by five directors from five different former Warsaw Pact nations, which shows occupied Prague from the viewpoint of the occupiers.
goEast is organising Prague 1968 in co-operation with Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

A Look to the Future 
As every year, in the scope of several festival sections goEast offers talented young filmmakers the opportunity to advance the cinema of tomorrow, make connections among themselves and within the industry and take part in numerous workshops. Just a little preview of things to come this year: for the first time goEast will be featuring works making use of virtual reality technology.

Please find more fotos in our download section: http://www.filmfestival-goeast.de/en/press/downloads.php

The full program for the 18th edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will be announced in early April.

 

PARIS: Immersify, a European R&D consortium made up of the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC, Poland), Spin Digital Video Technologies GmbH (Germany), le Marché du Film – Festival de Cannes (France), the Visualization Center C (Sweden) and Ars Electronica Futurelab (Austria), runs in Paris until March 2020. The project is supported by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.

When the Trees Fall is Ukrainian filmmaker Marysya Nikitiuk‘s debut feature. The script was developed at the 10th edition of ScripTeast with support from her Creative Advisors: Mark Peploe and Martin Stellman, and Christian Routh as Head of Studies.

When the War Comes, Touch Me Not, Interpreter

 

The Italian project Small Body is the winner of the eighth edition of When East Meets West. The project directed by Laura Samani and produced by Nadia Trevisan (Nefertiti Film) is a rough fairy-tale about Agata and her dangerous journey to bring her stillborn baby back to life, just enough time for one breath. The international WEMW jury consisting of Benjamin Illos (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs), Petri Kemppinen (Nordisk Film & TV Fond), Riina Sildos (Amrion) and Mila Turajlic (Dribbling Pictures) honoured Small Body with the Film Centre Serbia Development Award (3.000 EUR cash prize) as the best of the 21 projects in competition.

The new Baltic Award, another prize of the value of EUR 3.000, has been delivered by the three Baltic Film Centres to I’ll Stand by You, a Lithuanian/Italian film by Virginija Vareikyte and Maximilien Dejoie. For the second consecutive year the European Women’s Audiovisual Network comes back to Trieste and gives the EWA Network Best Woman Director Award to Haidy Kancler, director of the Slovenian documentary Skiing in Scarves.

Thanks to the partnership with a large international network of training programmes and markets, Serbian producer Dragana Jovovic (Theory at Work) received a scholarship for the participation in the EAVE European Producers Workshop, producers Snezana Penev (Film Deluxe International, Serbia) and Eirin Hogetveit (Norsk Fjernsyn, Norway) will have a free accreditation to the Cannes Marche du Film Producer’s Network whilst the Hot Docs Industry Pass has been granted to the Bosnian director/producer Srdjan Sarenac (Novi Film).

Futhermore, the Flow Postproduction Award, prize of 10.000 EUR in post-production facilities, goes to the Dutch project Confessions of Love produced by Fleur Knopperts (Volya Films) and directed by Tatjana Bozic,whilst the Czech project Plague will be offered a complete marketing package thanks to the new Asterisk Visual Marketing Award.

Lastly, three prices have been granted for the two sidebar sessions targeting films in the post production phase. The jury of Last Stop Trieste composed by Sabine Bubeck-Paaz (ZDF/ARTE), Ryan Harrington (Hot Docs) and Esther Van Messel (First Hand Films) has delivered the HBO Europe Award to the Argentinian/Italian documentary 100 Trips Around the Sun by Victor Cruz and the Flow Digital Cinema Award to the Czech/Latvian project My Unknown Soldier by Anna Kryvenko.

The international jury of This is IT, the brand new work in progress session dedicated to films produced or co-produced by Italian producers, including Rémi Bonhomme (Cannes – Semaine de la  Critique), Gabor Greiner (Films Boutique) and Iole Maria Giannattasio (DG Cinema MiBACT) gave a special mention to the film Città Giardino by Marco Piccarreda and granted the Slovenian/Italian film Stories from the Chestnut Woods by Gregor Božic with the Laser Film Award.

The eighth edition of WEMW ends with a series of impressive numbers: 21 projects selected, almost 300 submissions, over 45 different countries represented, 200 international decision makers, 460 registered participants and more than 600 scheduled one-to-one meetings.
WEMW CO-PRODUCTION FORUM AWARDS

FILM CENTRE SERBIA Development Award
SMALL BODY by Laura Samani – Nefertiti Film (Italy)

BALTIC AWARD
I’LL STAND BY YOU by Virginija Vareikyte, Maximilien Dejoie – M&N (Italy), InScript (Lithuania)

EWA European Women’s Audiovisual Network Award
SKIING IN SCARVES by Haidy Kancler – Studio Virc (Slovenia), Kinocompany (Finland), Flairfilm (Austria)

EAVE PRODUCERS WORKSHOP scholarship
Dragana Jovovic – Theory at Work (Serbia)

PRODUCERS NETWORK Prize
Snezana Penev – Film Deluxe International (Serbia)
Eirin Hogetveit – Norsk Fjernsyn (Norway)

HOT DOCS INDUSTRY PASS
Srdjan Sarenac – Novi Film (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Serbia)

Flow Postproduction Award
CONFESSIONS OF LOVE by Tatjana Bozic – Volya Films (The Netherlands)

ASTERISK VISUAL MARKETING AWARD
PLAGUE by Jan Tešitel – Sirena Film (Czech Republic)

LAST STOP TRIESTE
HBO Europe Award
100 TRIPS AROUND THE SUN by Victor Cruz – 16m films (Argentina), Kinoproduzioni (Italy)

Flow Digital Cinema Award
MY UNKNOWN SOLDIER by Anna Kryvenko – Analog Vision (Czech Republic), Baltic Pine Films (Latvia)

THIS IS IT
Laser Film Award
STORIES FROM THE CHESTNUT WOODS by Gregor Božic – Nosorogi (Slovenia), Transmedia (Italy)