11st goEast Film Festival

The festival in Hessen’s government city Wiesbaden has in it’s 11th edition a new director: Gaby Babic. Sticking to the original orientation of the festival, she broadened the program especially with a section called “Beyond Belonging”. It is reserved for “an exploration of new perspectives”. Here one could this year see such a finding as Josef von Sternberg’s The Last Command of 1928 with Emil Jannings as a tsarist general.

The backbone of the festival is still the competition with ten feature films and six documentaries this year. A symposium offered lectures and films on the subject “Marching Into The Picture — The New Right In Eastern European Film”. One of the most successful sections as far as attendance is concerned was the Student’s Section where young filmmakers could meet, show their work and plan co-productions. A retrospective payed homage to one of the great artists of animated film, Jan Švankmajer.

All in all goEast alongside with the Cottbus festival is a German window to the still neglected countries East of Berlin. (Thomas Rothschild)

goEast Film Festival: www.filmfestival-goeast.de