Films from Poland, Hungary, Georgia, Estonia and Kazakhstan were awarded the highly prestigious prizes at goEast – festival of Central and Eastern European Film. The prize ceremony moderated by Cécile Schortmann concluded the festival organized by Deutsches Filminstitut. The festival once again attracted more than 10,000 visitors to the cinemas and special events.
"We are pleased about the successful start of our programme for young filmmakers, the East-West Talent Lab. At the same time we felt the need to reflect on the development between Russia and Ukraine, for which we created valuable forums," emphasized the festival director Gaby Babić in the packed Caligari FilmBühne.
The four main prizes of the competition, amounting to a total of 31,500 EUR, were awarded by the international goEast jury under the leadership of the German producer Jan Harlan. The ŠKODA Film Award, worth 10,000 euros, goes to Ida by Paweł Pawlikowski and produced by Opus Film (Poland) and Phonex Film (Danmark), in association with Portobello Pictures (UK). In granting the award, the jury stated: “For a concise film-script and excellent directing and holding the audience’s attention in a beautiful and suspenseful film about a young girl who discovers that she is her own strongest pillar.”
The winner of the Documentary Award “Remembrance and Future“, also worth 10,000 EUR, is Eszter Hajdú for Judgement in Hungary produced by Miradouro Media. The jury explained the selection as following: “We award this prize for the courageous concept of documentary storytelling and the brilliant directing through editing and for the strong civil position in exploring an important issue for common European future.” With their award, the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ) honours a filmmaker who has critically and constructively engaged with the societal developments or historic injustice.
For his film Blind Dates, Levan Koguashvili (Milimeter Film) received the Award of the City of Wiesbaden for Best Director (7,500 EUR). The jury statement: “The award is granted for taking us through the authentic cinematic world, for the sensitive directing, and for a charming cast and extraordinary humour representing the great tradition of Georgian national cinematography.”
The Award of the Federal Foreign Office for “artistic originality which creates cultural diversity” (4,000 euros) is granted to the film LITTLE BROTHER by Serik Aprymov. According to the jury: “For the advanced using of the naive genre painting poetry of the East European cinema for portraying the disintegrating features of the post-Soviet life in a specific social and cultural area.”
The goEast jury gave two special mentions: on the one hand they were excited about the brilliantly fashioned production design of the Romanian drama Quod Erat Demonstrandum (directed by Cristian Niculescu and produced by Icon Film) and also honoured the supporting actor of the film Blind Dates, Vakhtang Chachanidze.
The “International Film Critic’s Award” is granted annually by a jury from FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics and Journalists. This year the prize went to Free Range – Ballad on Approving of the World by Veiko Õunpuu (Homeless Bob). The jury statement: “The film moves between reality and surrealism on a daring way. We find it a radical and mesmerizing cinematic portrait that the beat generation always deserved, but never got.”
For the tenth time the Robert Bosch Stiftung awarded the Film Prize for International Cooperation to talented young filmmakers from Germany and Eastern Europe. Since 2007 the foundation has been collaborating with goEast. The prize allows young Eastern European filmmakers to realize projects together with young filmmakers from Germany. Three ambitious projects were selected by an independent jury in the categories or animation, documentary, and short fiction.
The Award for International Cooperation in the animation category goes to the director Bella Szederkényi and the producer Lissi Muschol for The Wild Boar. The Award in the category short film was received by director Pavel Vesnakov and the producers Knut Jäger and Monica Balcheva for Zeus’ Volkswagen. The winner in the category documentary film are the director Marius Iacob as well as the producers Irina Andreea Malcea and Christian Popp for their project The Wellness Process.
The Open Frame Award distinguishes the best achievement in the Competition for Experimental Film and Video Art, granting 5,000 EUR. It is awarded by the BHF-BANK Foundation and granted this year for the first time. The jury of the Open Frame Award has cast its decision for two pieces ex equo. The winners were Roman Štětina‘s Tongue Twister as well as Jupiter and the Sea by Ştefan Botez. Luzie Meyer’s video Dialogue between a Camerawoman and a Dancer received a special mention.
The East-West Talent Lab could have been accomplished with the help of the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain.
The goEast Development Award for the best pitch at the East-West Talent Lab went to the project idea The Seventh Shift by the director Nataliya Ilchuk from Ukraine. The jury statement: "We found a project which impressed us by its realistic and poetic view of a woman's life, fragmented in shifts. In giving the award to The Seventh Shift, we would like to support the author to find the appropriate cinematic language for her intimate statement."
The 14th edition of goEast was overshadowed by the political crisis in Ukraine. A dialog between Russian and Ukrainian filmmakers was made possible through various discussions and conversations about films and was followed with great interest by the audience. In this way, goEast was able to create a space for intense and fruitful encounters, which is of great importance in the face of the tense situation in Ukraine.
