16th goEast - Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, Wiesbaden

The 16th edition of the goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Films took place from 20–26 April in the Hessian state capital Wiesbaden in Germany. The festival, focused on artistically daring and politically committed films, is a place for the cultural dialogue between East and West. Around 140 feature films, documentaries and shorts were screened over seven festival days, appealing to both professional visitors and local cinema audiences. The head of the festival is Gaby Babic.

In 2016 one of the central topics at the festival was “Othering”. The new pilot project OPPOSE OTHERING! was launched, and ten young filmmakers from Germany and Central and Eastern Europe paired in bi-national tandem teams. Over the next year, they will try to investigate different forms of marginalization and demonization of individuals or different social, religious, cultural, and ethnic groups. The festival also included the East-West Talent Lab, presenting experimental films and video art from emerging filmmakers; programmes that paid homage; special sections; and the Young Filmmakers for Peace project, organized in co-operation with the Robert Bosch Stiftung.

But as always, the most important part of a film festival is the competition programme. At goEast, the competition is international and includes both fiction films and documentaries. Each film selected for the competition was followed by in-depth and often very emotional discussions at the Festival Centre that often ended after midnight.

The Award for Best Film went to the Russian fiction feature Insight from award-winning Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Kott. The FIPRESCI jury decided to award The Red Spider (Poland-Czech Republic-Slovak Republic), a psychological thriller by Marcin Koszalka. The director was also honoured with the Award of the City of Wiesbaden for Best Director. The Award of the Federal Foreign Office for Cultural Diversity went to the Russian documentary Not My Job by Denis Shabaev. In addition, the jury awarded an Honourable Mention to Emilia Vasaryova for her performance in the leading role of the film Eva Nova (Slovak Republic/Czech Republic) directed by Marko Skop.

The main international jury consisted of five members: Karpo Godina (Jury President) is a well-known and respected cinematographer and filmmaker from Slovenia, one of the most important representatives of the Yugoslav cinematic movement “Black Wave”; Tihana Lazovic is a Croatian film actress; Polish-born Ewa Mazierska is a professor of contemporary cinema at the University of Central Lancashire inn the UK; Serbian film producer Miroslav Mogorovic is programme director of Palic Film Festival; and Lenka Tyrpakova works as a member of the selection committee for several film festivals, including Karlovy Vary IFF. The members of the FIPRESCI jury were Arthur Werner (Germany), who works for an international press agency both as film critic and sports analyst; freelance journalist and film critic Elena Rubashevska (Ukraine); and Maria Ulfsak-Sheripova (Estonia), a film critic from the Estonian national weekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress. (Maria Ulfsak-Sheripova, edited by Birgit Beumers)

goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, Wiesbaden:
www.filmfestival-goeast.de