The accreditation phase for the 25. Festival Edition is now running! It will take place from 23 – 29. April 2025 in Wiesbaden and other venues in the Rhine-Main region.

Your festival badge grants entrance to the screenings of festival films in Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Mainz, Darmstadt and Giessen as well as to most of the events in the supporting programme. The prerequisite in each case is that the events are not yet sold out. Some events (“specials”) may not be included. Your accreditation also gives you access to the goEast online media library containing a selection of our festival films.

Further information on the current accreditation procedure can be found in our FAQ section.

You can apply for accreditation exclusively via Eventival, or at short notice during the festival week at our info counter (you may have to expect waiting times). Please also note that we will charge an additional late accreditation fee of 10 € from April 17th.

Once again emerging documentary filmmakers and producers from Central and Eastern Europe are invited to the East-West Talent Lab, which will take place within the framework of the 25th goEast Film Festival. The talent program is looking for 10 to 15 non-fiction projects in development, as well as for up to 10 producers to apply without a project.

The East-West Talent Lab is particularly tailored to the needs of non-fiction and documentary filmmakers. With the help of experienced coaches, the projects will be developed and prepared for a public pitch. Panels, Networking-Events and a Masterclass will also take place during the festival.

Two awards will be given within the East-West Talent Lab 2025:

1. A  Research Grant, endowed with 3.500 Euros for an early-stage documentary project focusing on human rights and/or minority rights. 
2. Pitch the Doc Prize, a training to support the development of the project (value of 500 Euros).

NOMINATED PROJECT IDEAS

65 WIDOws  (Documentary – Bulgaria)  

by co-directors Maria Makedonska and Nikola Zambelli 

65 widows in the village of Deleyna are the last keepers of ancient Vlach death rituals – now threatened by a neighboring village mayor. Local charmer Spiro, with his red “Party Van,” which carries both the local choir to festivals and the dead to the cemetery, becomes the heart of their resistance.

AKA, MY RUSSIAN UNCLE (Documentary – Kyrgyzstan, Germany)  

by director Gulzat Egemberdieva 

My uncle “Aka” is the first Russian who appeared in our family. Beyond Soviet Russian hegemony, following the colonization of nomadic lands by Cossacks and peasant settlers, his story tells also about those who were and still are “in-between.”

BUDKA (Documentary – Bulgaria, Poland, The Netherlands)  

by director Anna Jones 

Kiosks (budka) are at the heart of every Bulgarian neighborhood, but nowadays they are rapidly disappearing. As big chains overtake small businesses, the promise of free choice in capitalism crumbles.   

Dala (Documentary – Kazakhstan)  

by director Almira Saifullina 

DALA is a personal and political documentary exploring the controversial legacy of Soviet modernization in Central Kazakhstan. Through the filmmaker’s return home, archival and present-day imagery turn the steppe’s monotone landscapes into a canvas of memory and poignant reflection. 

DUST IN THe SHOwcase (Documentary – Croatia)  

by director Daniel Pavlić  

Between lucidity, creativity, a harsh life without a father, an asylum seeker who was beaten by other asylum seekers in the Netherlands, a homosexual who still believes that his partner is alive, my father is exceptional “material” for a documentary film which will evoke memories and inspire many.

Etude. kharkiv (Short documentary – Ukraine, Germany)  

by director Polina Piddubna 

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is a 370-year-old frontier of culture and industry—home to resilience, courage, and hope. Now among the most war-damaged cities, it resists daily. This project uses a special technique: analogue animation directly on film footage to capture its soul. 

HEARTS OF COAL (Documentary – Ukraine)  

by director Regina Maryanovska Davidzon 

As Russia’s war rages on, Ukrainian women step into coal mines once dominated by men. With miners lost to battle, they risk their lives to support their communities. Through three miners’ stories, the film explores resilience and an uncertain future beneath a nation at war. 

I, THE GYPSY (WT) (Short documentary – Hungary, UK)  

by co-directors Dasa Raimanova and Bela Varadi 

An LGBTQI+ Roma photographer based in London returns to his small hometown in Hungary to put up an exhibition of his award-winning photographs. Craving acknowledgement from his community, he reflects on his sense of belonging. 

LITHUANIA MINOR (Documentary – Lithuania)  

by director Artsiom Lobach 

The documentary film LITHUANIA MINOR tells the story of the residents of the border territory and depicts the cultural blend of German, Soviet, Lithuanian, and Russian historical heritage that coexists and interacts in this region of modern Lithuania.

MOE (Documentary –Uzbekistan)

by director Yana Xarasho 

The movie is about a group of teenagers who are into cosplay culture. Under the state regime, when any dissent is punished, teenagers become a target for oppression and denunciation. Every day the community of cosplayers in Uzbekistan develops and grows. 

MONGOLIAN Diaries (Documentary – Mongolia, Russia)  

by director Alexander Maduev 

MONGOLIAN DIARIES is a documentary film on the experiences of the modern Buryat community living in Mongolia, told through the lens of young immigrants, their heritage and modern life. 

PARADISE OCCUPIED (Documentary – Russia, Ukraine) 

by co-directors Ekaterina Selenkina and Ibraim Haniiev 

Interweaving idyllic footage shot by Russian settlers in Crimea with testimonies of displaced Crimean Tatars, PARADISE OCCUPIED unveils cinema’s role in colonial policy and shatters the occupiers’ narrative through indigenous rituals of mourning, land reclamation, and the revival of ancient legends. 

THE STORY OF THE WILD ROSE (Documentary – Estonia, Sweden) 

by co-directors Liis Nimik and Kristen Aigro 

A Mexican telenovela takes Estonia by storm in 1993 and reaches viewership records that remain unchallenged to this day. Portraying absurdity of the times through everyday life, a lively journey full of humor, hardships and endless personal desires will take us from collectivism to individualism. 

YOUTH OF THE NORTH (Documentary – France, Germany) 

by director Evgenia Leushnika, presented by producer Sakhamin Trofimov 

Sakha punks buy a ship and set off on a musical tour through Yakut villages. Their goal is to reach the Arctic Ocean. The ship is captained by Denis Alekseev, known as ‘Gazelle of Death,’ who has spent 20 years driving punk bands around the world.  

PRODUCERS  

Margarita Amineva-Jester (Germany)     

Margarita Dreiling (Germany)     

Vincent Edusei (Germany)     

Jitka Kotrlova (Czech Republic)     

Nađa Lapčević (Serbia/Scotland)   

Iuliia Mamaeva (Czech Republic)     

Till Morgenfrüh (Germany)    

Lukáš Procházka (Czech Republic)   

Hana Šormová (Czech Republic) 

goEast has featured a bespoke competition for virtual reality works since 2018, which has, however, up until now solely shown completed VR projects in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt. Now the festival is set to take on a new challenge – with a programme and accompanying competition exclusively intended for work-in-progress and collaborative projects in the fields of virtual and extended reality.

The declared goal here is to promote new talents from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as students from Germany, who are united by a common passion for VR and XR. Within the programme, the selected participants will receive assistance in their search for further opportunities to fund their projects.

In 2023 this programme was made possible for goEast thanks to the support of the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain within the framework of the side programme Cinema Archipelago.