Press Release
Independent Ukrainian voices, unusual road movies and rebelling adolescents – the goEast Competition 2014
- Out of 371 submissions, ten feature films and six documentary films were selected for the goEast Competition, including 13 premieres for Germany and two world premieres
- Stanley Kubrick producer Jan Harlan is president of the jury for the festival’s 14th edition
The cinematic forms in this year’s Competition programme at goEast range from road movies to tragicomedies to political dramas. In this way, the contributions appropriate current topics, but also look to the past. “We have two strong historical topics represented: on the one hand, a Polish story set in the time after the Shoah, impressive both as a road movie as well as a coming-of-age, then an exciting Securitate drama from Romania. It is noteworthy that many of the movies in the Feature Film Competition tell of growing up and rebellious distancing towards their parents’ generation. These processes are often interwoven with intensive love stories. The Documentary Competition overwhelmingly deals with severe human rights violations; be it the Roma murders in Hungary, the Belarusian dictator, or even torture in the Caucasus,” goEast festival director Gaby Babić describes this year’s selection. Polish, Romanian, and Russian films are particularly strongly represented. In addition to Levan Koguashvili, Marcel Łoziński is also at the goEast Competition again. “This year we once again have a balanced relationship between debuts and works by well-known directors,” said Babić.
Outside the Competition, in view of the dramatic developments in the Ukraine, goEast is screening an episodic documentary film that offers multifaceted insights in the civil society of the country: UKRAINE_VOICES from the “Indie Lab” by Dmytro Tiazhlov and Ella Shtyka is being shown as a world premiere in an out of competition screening. Like a kaleidoscope, the independent film project presents a spectrum of ideological fragmentation: an animal rights activist from the nature reserve Askania Nova marches to the Maidan in Kiev. There a demonstrator who convinces the armoured person opposite her that toughness and attitudes are inner values. A man lives as an urban nomad without documentation, another goes to the European Court of Justice to fight for his rights. In an orthodox Cossack camp young people are trained in militarized homeland defense.
The International Jury
The producer and director Jan Harlan assumes the role of jury president this year. His jury colleagues are the Hungarian film historian Iván Forgács, the Georgian director and screen writer Nana Ekvtimishvili, the actor Ivan Shvedoff, born in Saint Petersburg, as well as the Ukrainian Dmytro Tiazhlov, who works as a cinematographer as well as director.
The Feature Films in Competition
The festival will be opened with the Polish drama IDA (Poland, Denmark 2013). In breathtaking black-and-white images the director Paweł Pawlikowski shows the young novice Anna and her aunt searching for traces of her unknown, Jewish past. Just as emotional, using lay actors LITTLE BROTHER (Kazakhstan 2013, director: Serik Aprymov) tells the story of a nine-year-old survival artist who is all on his own in the steppes of Kazakhstan. SEDUCE ME (Slovenia 2013), the feature film debut by Marko Šantić, is an impressive portrait of a generation which on its way to adulthood is abandoned by parents and society QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM (Romania 2013, director: Andrei Gruzsniczki) focuses on an infamous institution: the Securitate, the omnipresent power that caused the existential insecurity of its citizens under the pretext of state security. In the Georgian tragicomedy BLIND DATES (2013, director: Levan Koguashvili), a complicated web of relationships is spun when a pair of lovers is confronted with the release of the husband from prison. Veiko Õunpuu’s FREE RANGE (Estonia 2013) follows the talented film critic and poet Fred, who is forced to make concessions regarding his career and lifestyle by his girlfriend’s pregnancy.
In her debut feature film, THE HOPE FACTORY (Russia 2014), Natalia Meshchaninova follows two women rivals who want to flee the Russian backwoods. In its world premiere, goEast is showing FREE ENTRY – A DAY IN THE LIFE OF BETTY (2014), a film by the young Hungarian director Yvonne Kerékgyártó. She tells of the turbulent coming-of-age of the two friends Betty and “V”. Yusup Razykov’s film SHAME (Russia 2013) deals with the self-chosen isolation of the wife of a Russian submarine officer.
A blasé filmmaker, a young actress, a stressful shoot, a producer who is “not amused”: with elaborate formal tools and ingenious dialogue, the director Corneliu Porumboiu tells of the process of filmmaking in WHEN EVENING FALLS ON BUCHAREST OR METABOLISM (Romania 2013).
The Documentaries in Competition
This year the six-person selection committee again chose stirring documentary films. In this vein, VALLEY OF SIGHS (Romania 2013, director: Mihai Andrei Leaha, Andrei Crişan, Iulia Hossu) establishes a multi-layered cinematic monument to the 25,000 Roma murdered during the Shoah. In ZELIM’S CONFESSION (Germany 2013), the director Natalia Mikhaylova follows a young refugee from Chechnya who had become a victim of torture. The paths of two proud men cross in the Belarusian documentary TEMPTATION (2013): the artist Viktar Dashuk fights the overwhelmingly powerful statesman Lukashenko. In Hungary several Roma villages were attacked by right-wing extremists in 2008 and 2009. Six people died, including a five-year-old child. In JUDGMENT IN HUNGARY (Hungary, Germany 2013), the director Eszter Hajdú documents the two-and-a-half year long trial as a highly intense chamber play.
Marcel Łoziński is once again represented in the goEast Competition with FATHER AND SON ON A JOURNEY (Poland 2013). He returns to Wiesbaden with his family story: a road movie with his son, the filmmaker Paweł Łoziński, which tells of a complicated father-son relationship with just as much humour as potential for conflict. In the highly amusing grotesque documentary NEPAL FOREVER (Russia 2013, director: Aliona Polunina) the Communist fanatics Sergei and Victor set off to bring peace to Nepal. They add a third stream to the dominant schools of the left-wing movement – Marxist Leninism and Maoism – Dadaism.
The Competition Awards
This year in the main Competition awards totalling 31,500 euros are being granted: the ŠKODA Film Award (10,000 euros), sponsored by ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland. The Documentary Award “Remembrance and Future” is also worth 10,000 euro, donated by the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ). In addition, the Award of the City of Wiesbaden for Best Director (7,500 euro) and the Award of the Federal Foreign Office for “artistic originality which creates cultural diversity” (4,000 euro) is granted. A FIPRESCI jury decides the International Film Critic’s Award.
This year as well, goEast presents itself in Frankfurt. The Competition’s feature films as well as the highly topical contribution UKRAINE_VOICES, albeit outside the competition, can be seen in the cinema of Deutsches Filmmuseum. From the festival section “Beyond Belonging”, FOR MARX … will be shown in Frankfurt.
Once again, goEast is also guest with a film selection in the art house cinemas Palatin in Mainz and Rex in Darmstadt.
Advanced ticket sales begin on Monday, March 18 at the Tourist-Information in Wiesbaden (telephone: +49 (0) 611 172 9780) as well as at the Caligari FilmBühne (telephone: +49 (0) 611 315050). The programme will be available for download on the goEast website by the middle of March.
Save the Date: The goEast press conference takes place on Thursday, 3 April at 11 a.m. at the Caligari FilmBühne, Marktplatz 9, 65183 Wiesbaden.
Current Information about the Festival
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Current photographic material under
http://www.filmfestival-goeast.de/index.php?article_id=19&clang=0
goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film is organized by the Deutsches Filminstitut in Wiesbaden and depicts the diversity of cinema in Central and Eastern Europe. It is supported by numerous partners: the main supporters are the Hessen State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts and the State Capital of Wiesbaden, the EVZ Foundation, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland, the Deutsch-Polnische Wissenschaftsstiftung, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, the BHF-BANK Foundation and the Adolf und Luisa Haeuser-Stiftung für Kunst und Kulturpflege.
Press Contact:
Anne von der Gönne
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goEast Filmfestival
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Organizer:
Deutsches Filminstitut – DIF
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