East of Wiesbaden, films galore
Kicking off today in Wiesbaden is the 9th goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film (April 22-28), which will screen 110 features and shorts and host 300 guests.
The event aims to promote dialogue between Eastern and Western Europe and present the work of great masters and young auteurs.
Screening out of competition this evening, audiences will be able to discover Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s latest work, Sweet Rush [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which won the Alfred Bauer Prize for Innovation at the latest Berlinale for its bold and experimental style.
Ten narrative features and six documentaries will screen in competition. These include Meelis Muhu’s Estonian film Alyosha, about the bronze soldier that is the only vestige of Tallinn’s communist past; Slovakian director Juraj Lehotsky’s Blind Loves [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; Petr Zelenka’s Czech title The Karamazovs [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which won acclaim on the festival circuit; and Serbian filmmaker Boris Mitic’s "satirical documentary fairytale" Goodbye, How Are You?.
The line-up also features Alexandru Solomon’s Romanian title Apocalypse on Wheels, Radu Jude’s Dutch/Romanian co-production The Happiest Girl in the World [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Javor Gardev’s Bulgarian film Zift [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and Gábor Dettre’s Hungarian thriller The Class.
Other festival sections are Symposium, a look at Eastern Europe’s cinematic heritage; Signature, which focuses on completely original and independent titles; and Highlights, of films lauded at festivals and domestically (such as Time of the Comet by Albania’s Fatmir Koçi and Fluke [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Hungary’s Tamás Keményffy, whose screenings will be attended by their directors).
The Portrait section is this year dedicated to the Czech Republic’s Jan Sverak.
goEast gives special prominence to students in the Students’ Section and to young talents, who are invited to take part in the Young Professionals programme. This year also sees the second edition of the goEast Project Market.
Finally, for the third consecutive year, the Co-production Prize will be awarded by the Robert Bosch Fund to help young directors get their projects off the ground.
(Translated from French)
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