Wiesbaden/Frankfurt, 29 January 2025

goEast’s 2025 edition is all about celebrating a special birthday with a host of cinematic treasures and guests. Every year for the past 25 years, goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film, hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, has transformed the Hessian state capital of Wiesbaden into one of the most internationally significant venues for cinema from Central and Eastern Europe. With a program consisting of film screenings and accompanying events, goEast’s reach has extended beyond its regional audience since its inception in 2001 – to communities with histories of migration from Eastern Europe all across Germany and industry guests from the international film sector alike. This year, the film festival will once again be showcasing current cinematic art from Central and Eastern Europe and providing a platform for the discussion of social and political issues that is more important than ever. In the scope of film-historical programs, goEast renders the film heritage of Central and Eastern Europe visible, in collaboration with archives from Germany and abroad. In 2025, these and other series will again be carefully assembled by qualified guest curators and cinema experts. In the scope of the goEast Symposium, film scholarship meets the film industry, while the Competition features contemporary cinema from Central and Eastern Europe, with the filmmakers in attendance. The sidebar program makes space for video art and digital audio-visual formats, while the East-West Talent Lab offers active support for up-and-coming film professionals from Central and Eastern Europe. In the program for this special anniversary edition, renowned directors from Germany and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe encounter one another. From Wednesday, 23 April, to Tuesday, 29 April, Wiesbaden will play host to a grand celebration of 25 years of goEast, brilliant films, tolerance and the growing together of Europe. The festival team is looking forward to welcoming guests from Wiesbaden and around the world and is preparing a special program.

Symposium: “Omas, Babas, Babushkas – Gender & Ageing in European Cinema”

In the Symposium section, every year since 2001, goEast has been exploring topics, regions and currents in Central and Eastern European cinema from film-historical, sociological and political perspectives. As part of the Cinema Archipelago series, the program in 2025 is made possible again with the generous support of Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain.

The population of Europe is getting older, although demographic developments are different for the Eastern and Western parts of the continent – on the cinema screen and in the theatre audience as well. Following the highly successful recent editions of the goEast Symposium, which saw record attendance, the 2025 Symposium is devoted to the topic of “Gender, Ageing and Cinema” and aims to compare the situations in Western and Central Europe. The event is taking place in co-operation with the interdisciplinary research project “AGE-C: Ageing and Gender in European Cinema” with the kind support of the Volkswagen Foundation and project partner Goethe University (located in Frankfurt am Main). In 2025, the curatorial team, consisting of film scholars Dr. Asja Makarević (researcher and film curator, active at Sarajevo IFF and Berlinale Forum, among other roles), Boglárka Angéla Farkas (researcher in theatre and film studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca) and Dr. habil. Andrea Virginás (researcher in cultural studies, author and professor, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), will examine the topic of female ageing in particular. Researchers from the fields of gerontology and care studies as well as representatives of the European film industry working in production, funding and distribution and diverse filmmakers have been invited to Wiesbaden to tackle the key issues of the Symposium. Producers Ada Solomon (Romania, BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONEY PORN) and Labina Mitevska (North-Macedonia, GOD EXISTS, HER NAME IS PETRUNYA), Matthijs Wouter Knol (Managing Director of the European Film Academy) as well as Georgian director Elene Naveriani (BLACKBIRD, BLACKBIRD, BLACKBERRY) have already confirmed their attendance. In 2025, the Symposium lectures and panel discussions will take place in Wiesbaden’s Altes Gericht, operated by Heimathafen – the historic building, converted into a conference and co-working facility, will also be home in 2025 to goEast’s Festival Centre. The accompanying film program, consisting of modern classics, will be screened at Murnau Filmtheater.

The titles of the planned panels include THE PROMISE OF THE GOLDEN YEARS: SELLING AGE AND GENDER IN EUROPEAN CINEMA, CAN WOMEN AGE IN EASTERN EUROPEAN CINEMA?, FEMALE AGEING AND FILM CURATION and FRAGILITY, GENDER AND AGENCY. The film program consists of modern classics and contemporary works, including the feature films NIJOLĖ (Lithuania, 2019) by Sandro Bozzolo, VIKA! (Poland, 2023) by Agnieszka Zwiefka, I’M AN OLD COMMUNIST HAG (Sunt o babă comunistă, Romania, 2013) by Stere Gulea, OLHA’S ITALIAN DIARY (Ukraine, 2020) by Olena Fedyuk, THE GATEWAY (Brama, Ukraine, 2017) by Volodymyr Tykhyy, FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH (Esi uzticīgs līdz nāvei, Latvia, 2024) by Ivars Zviedris, CONSTANTIN & ELENA (Constantin si Elena, Romania, 2009) by Andrei Dăscălescu and the short films THE BEAST (Zverjka, Croatia, 2015) by Daina Oniunas Pusić and PLIMA (Croatia, 2022) by Eva Vidan.

RhineMain Short Film Competition: “Revenge of the Babushka”

The RhineMain Short Film Competition is celebrating its sixth edition under the slogan “Revenge of the Babushka”. The “Babushka” (or “baba”, “bunica”, “bebia” in various Eastern-European languages) has a very special reputation. The Eastern European grandmother is frequently more than just a family member – in many fairy tales she is often the secret, true heroine of the story and possesses a sort of undeniable power. For the 2025 edition of the Short Film Competition, goEast is searching for short films from the last three years from Central and Eastern Europe in which older women play a central role – whether in front of or behind the camera: ladies, grandmas, “babushki”, trans-women, witches or senior citizens in general. A regional jury, consisting of film professionals from the Rhine-Main region, will select the winning film, which will be awarded 2,500 euros in prize money. As every year, the short film program will undertake a tour of the region’s cinemas following the festival. Interested parties are encouraged to submit their short films for the RhineMain Short Film Competition from now until 10 February.

Applications Currently Open for East-West Talent Lab (Deadline: 25 February)

The East-West Talent Lab has firmly established itself within the international film industry. Former participants have gone on to receive nominations for the European Film Award, and East-West Talent Lab alumni take part with their films in major cinema forums such as the Berlinale or IDFA. Tamara Stepanyan’s film MY ARMENIAN PHANTOMS, for example, will celebrate its premiere in 2025 in the Forum section of this year’s Berlinale. In 2025, goEast is once again supporting emerging filmmakers and up-and-coming producers from Central and Eastern Europe, by connecting them with one another and with peers from Hessen and the rest of Germany. The emphasis of the program, directed by Andrea Wink, once again lies on non-fiction and documentary formats. From now until Tuesday, 25 February, filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe can submit their project ideas in development. Producers from Central and Eastern Europe as well as Germany without a current project can also apply to participate in the East-West Talent Lab. In 2025, the Lab will once again feature two awards: the Renovabis Research Grant, endowed with 3,500 euros, for a documentary film project treating human rights and/or minority rights, and the Pitch-the-Doc Award, featuring a training package for the support of project development, valued at 500 euros. Participants can look forward to a full five-day program consisting of a masterclass, workshops and opportunities to network with television editors and funding institutions, as well as diverse film screenings.

You can find images related to the festival in our download section.

The full program for the 25^th edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will be revealed in March.

goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film is hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and made possible with the support of numerous partners. Primary funding partners are HessenFilm und Medien GmbH, the State Capital Wiesbaden, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany and the solidarity initiative of the German Catholics with the people in Central and Eastern Europe  Renovabis. Primary media partners include 3sat, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Submissions to Symposium Open until 1 March

With the support of luminaries from the worlds of film scholarship and filmmaking, such as Prof. Nancy Condee, Ivan Kozlenko, Dita Rietuma, Daria Badior, Igor Soukmanov, Oleksiy Radinsky, Valentyn Vasyanovych and Davra Collective, curators Barbara Wurm and Heleen Gerritsen will take the historical rupture represented by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine as a departure point to reflect on several key aspects of the institutional and political entanglement of the non-Russian film cultures – above all the Ukrainian – with the one-time power centre of Moscow. Discussion will cover a wide range of topics: Ukrainian cinema of the past and future; the traces of the imperial in “non-Russian Russia”, for instance in Sakha or the North Caucasus region; the film festival landscape beyond Moscow – from Minsk to Tashkent (historically and today); the cinematic and film-cultural legacy of the USSR – from Kyiv and Riga to Tbilisi and Yerevan back to Wiesbaden, as well as the debate on the appropriate approach to canons and classics; the question of Soviet anti-colonialism; the question of who owns the rights and copies of Soviet films produced by non-Russians; the cultural and national memory of alternative, non-state film and photo archives; and documentary cinema as a space for reflection on what the notions of Soviet and post-Soviet once signified and can signify today.

Within the Symposium, these topics will be explored from film-historical, political and sociological angles, featuring special guest presenters from the fields of film scholarship and filmmaking practice. To accompany the Symposium of the 23rd edition of goEast, a special issue of Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe is to be compiled and published, under the title “Decolonizing the (post-)Soviet Screen”. Contributions that aim to apply the decolonisation concept in the context of the (post-)Soviet space (including Central Asia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, Russia and its autonomous regions) can be submitted from now until 1 March.

goEast Co-operation with the Berlinale’s European Film Market

The topic of the Symposium has already been met with a very positive response during preparations for the event and has also been taken up by the Berlinale’s European Film Market. On 20 February 2023, a panel discussion organised in co-operation with goEast will take place, under the title “A New Reality: Decolonising the Post-Soviet Screen”, in which goEast festival director Heleen Gerritsen will engage in conversation with film industry representatives from Georgia, Latvia, Tadzhikistan and Ukraine, as well as Simone Baumann from German Films. The talk will explore how the most recent realities of the post-Soviet space are conveyed and depicted on screen while delving into their aesthetic, film-historical, political and sociological significance for the film industry and the audience in an international context.

Event location:

Dokumentationszentrum für Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung
Stresemannstraße 90,
10963 Berlin
20.Februar 2023, 15:15 Uhr

admission free of charge with EFM Market Badge

Emerging Beyond Borders: East-West Talent Lab

Once again, this year goEast will be supporting filmmakers and emerging talents from Central and Eastern Europe and providing them with an opportunity to network with like-minded peers from Germany. Under the continued direction of Andrea Wink, the program will once again focus on documentary formats. Filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe can submit their project ideas currently in development until 28 February 2023. Producers hailing from Central and Eastern Europe as well as Germany without a concrete project can also apply to attend the East-West Talent Lab. You can find images related to the festival in our download section. The full program for the 23rd edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will be announced in March.

 

goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film is hosted by DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and made possible with the support of numerous partners. Primary funding partners are HessenFilm und Medien GmbH, the State Capital Wiesbaden, Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, the film festival funding program of the Goethe-Institut in co-operation with the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, Osteuropa-Hilfswerk Renovabis and the Central and Eastern European Online Library GmbH / CEEOL. Media partners include 3sat, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung