Why “goEast” as a festival motto? Some say it was motivated by the quaint, comical “Go West” cigarette posters plastered all over billboards at train stations and bus stops. Whatever. As a catching, easily communicable festival nickname, it serves its purpose well by drawing needed attention to the oft-neglected cinematographies of former socialist countries, some now experiencing a spirited revival as members of the European Union. This year, for the 7th goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Films in Wiesbaden (28 March to 3 April 2007), “goSoutheast” might even have been a better catch-word, particularly as the primary focus was on films from the Balkans. Moreover, as festival director Christine Kopf stated in the catalogue, “goEast is bringing together experts from the countries of Southeast Europe with a view of pooling their experience and jointly developing a regional network for documentary filmmaking.” Thanks to support offered by the European Cultural Foundation and the Goethe-Institut, a dozen directors of documentary festivals scattered across the Balkans were invited to participate in a two-day workshop to this effect.

 Why is Wiesbaden, famous the world over for its spa baths and gambling tables, fast becoming the key festival window for Central and Eastern European cinema? Well, why not? Consider, first, that the Wiesbaden Casino was where Russian novelist Dostoyevsky was inspired to pen “The Gambler” in 1867, dubbing the city “Roulettenberg” in reference to his favorite betting table. To this day, Wiesbaden is dotted with villas built by Russian aristocrats who had fled the October Revolution. The Caligari Film Bühne, erected in 1926 in splendid neogothic style and completely renovated in 2000, serves as the arthouse venue of the German Film Institute (DIF). Under director Claudia Dillmann, the DIF recently linked with the German Film Museum in neighboring Frankfurt am Main to become one of the largest film centers of its kind in Europe. After spearheading filmportal.de as an indispensable website on German films and filmmakers, DIF is currently promoting the film landscapes of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe with special programming and projects.

 This year, with film production on the rise throughout the new EU member states, goEast artistic director Swetlana Sikora apparently had little problem assembling a representative program for both the feature film and the documentary competitions. After all, several entries has already been critically acclaimed at other major festivals: Ivan Vyrypaev’s Euforia (Euphoria) (Russia) at Venice, Agnes Kocsis’s Friss levego (Fresh Air) (Hungary) at Cannes in the Week of the Critics, Srdjan Golubovic’s Klopka (The Trap) (Serbia) and Ognjen Svilicic’s Armin (Croatia) at the Berlinale in the Forum, and Kirill Serebrennikov’s Izobrazaha zertvu (Playing the Victim) (Russia) at the Open Russian Film Festival in Sochi. As Lucien Pintilie, Romania’s veteran director who headed the international jury, unequivocally stated on closing night, “We had the pleasure of viewing some masterpieces.”

 Another highlight at Wiesbaden was the three-day Symposium on “Religion and Spirituality in Central and Eastern European Films of the Past and Present,” conducted by film historian Hans-Joachim Schlegel and critic-programmer Bernd Buder. Simultaneous translation was provided for participants from Russia, Poland, Georgia, and Germany. In addition, to help ignite discussion in the Roncalli Haus (named for Pope John XXIII), participants could view 17 films (features, documentaries, shorts, animation) from Central and Eastern Europe that dealt specifically with religious themes or mirrored a thirst for spirituality. Among these were Sergei Eisenstein’s reconstructed Bezhin Meadow (USSR, 1935-37), Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (USSR, 1966), Krzysztof Zanussi’s Death of a Provincial (Poland, 1965), and Tengiz Abuladze’s Prayer (USSR/Georgia, 1967).

 Albanian director Fatmir Koci was honored with a Portrait that included his pathbreaking Tirana Year Zero (2001), the film that put his country on the map as a Balkan filmland to be respected. The Homage to Milos Forman spotlighted his evergreen Czech films, from Audition (1963) to The Firemen’s Ball (1967), to the delight of cineastes in the crowd. Among the Specials were a salute to Ukrainian Animation, an archival screening of Sandor (aka Alexander) Korda’s silent film The Golden Man (Hungary, 1918) to piano accompaniment, and a matinee with German actress Katharina Thalbach on the occasion of the local screening of Volker Schloendorff’s Strajk – Die Heldin von Danzig (Strike – The Heroine of Danzig) about the founding of the Solidarnosz movement.

 Other sidebars offered insights into a broad range of film and digital production from Estonia to Kosovo, Moldova to Kazakhstan. The goEast Young Professionals Program, sponsored by the Robert Bosch Foundation, singled out projects to be realized as cooperative productions by film students from Germany in unison with young professionals from Central and Eastern Europe. At the close of the conference to launch the new Southeast Europe Documentary Network, I discovered to my amazement how Moldova’s Dumitru Marian has been successfully running the Cronograf Documentary Festival in Kishinev for the past six years, and why it still thrives as a popular cultural event despite power shortages. Also, to my embarrassment, I learned how Croatia’s Nenad Puhovski has made proficient use of a website on the internet to publicize his Zagreb Dox festival.

 Ivan Vyrypaev’s Euforia (Euphoria) (Russia) was awarded the Skoda Prize for Best Film. Directed by a talented writer-playwright-actor making his first film, this chronicle of a passionate love affair in an isolated rural area recalls films and photographs about the Dust Bowl plight of the American Depression during the 1930s. Indeed, the images alone made Euphoria a standout and a reminder of just how creative Russian filmmaking is at present. Marcel Lozinski’s Jak to sie robi (How to Do It) (Poland) was awarded the Hertie Foundation Documentary Award. A something sympathetic, often scathing portrait of a charismatic spin doctor, a fast talker with image finesse out to teach young candidates how to function in the political area, the moments that count are when his half-truths are questioned and boiled down to populist demagoguery. As a direct cinema exercise, Marcel Lozinski’s How to Do It works best when real politicians appear on the scene as witnesses to Poland’s feeble attempts to wrestle with the demands of a democratic society.

 As for the other awards at goEast, they went deservedly to the top films at the festival. Srdjan Golubovic was awarded Best Director, while his Klopka (The Trap), a Serbian coproduction with Germany and Hungary, was voted the FIPRESCI (International Critics) Prize. Recently, The Trap, the poignant story of a good man who turns hitman to earn the money for his son’s life-saving operation, was also awarded the Main Prize at the Sofia International Film Festival. Ognjen Svilicic’s Armin, a Croatian coproduction with Germany and Bosnia-Hercegovina, received the German Foreign Office Award from the hands of Hilmar Hoffmann, formerly the President of the Goethe Institute and one of Germany’s outstanding cultural officials and film historians. In addition, actor Emir Hadzihafisbegovic was given an Honorable Mention for his role in Armin. He plays the father in this tragicomic tale about a parent who scrambles to win an audition for his 14-year-old son in a German film production about the war in Bosnia. Another Honorable Mention went to Kirill Serebrennikov’s Izobrazaha zertvu (Playing the Victim) (Russia), a screen adaptation of a popular stage play by Oleg and Vladimir Presnyakov, a brothers team who leans heavily on comic antics to reconstruct crimes for fumbling criminal investigators. The twist? They pay needy bystanders to “play the victims” before a running video-camera. The kind of savage, slipshod, come-what-may fun that today’s media feeds on.

goEast Awards

International Jury

Skoda Award, Best Film
Euforia (Euphoria) (Russia), dir Ivan Vyrypaev
Honorable Mentions
Izobrazaha zertvu (Playing the Victim) (Russia), dir Kirill Serebrennikov
Emir Hadzihafisbegovic, actor in Armin (Croatia/Germany/Bosnia-Hercegovina), dir Ognjen Svilicic
Best Director
Srdjan Golubovic, Klopka (The Trap) (Serbia/Germany/Hungary)
Hertie Foundation Documentary Award
Jak to sie robi (How to Do It) (Poland), dir Marcel Lozinski
German Foreign Office Award
Armin (Croatia/Germany/Bosnia-Hercegovina), dir Ognjen Svilicic

Other Awards

FIPRESCI (International Critics) Award
Klopka (The Trap) (Serbia/Germany/Hungary), dir Srdjan Golubovic

BHF-Bank Foundation Award
Bank Award – Documentary Film
Suvine Dokumentaal (Summer Documentary) (Estonia), dir Joosep Matjus (Baltic Fillm and Media School, Tallinn)
Honorary Mention – Short Feature Film
Meister (Champion) (Estonia), dir Kaupo Kruusiauk (Baltic Fillm and Media School, Tallinn)

Audience Awards, Student Competition

Short Feature Film
First Prize
Tulnikas ehk Valdise pääsemine osas (Alien – Saving Valdis in 11 Chapters) (Estonia), dir Rasmus Merivoo
Second Prize
Birnbaum (Pear Tree) (Germany), dir Ronald Scharf
Third Prize
Meister (Champion) (Estonia), dir Kaupo Kruusiauk

Documentary or Experimental Film
First Prize
Die Kunst-Koffer kommen! (The Kunst-Koffer Are Arriving!) (Germany), dir Nadja Burdack, Carmen Pillich, Kerstin Kogler
Second Prize
Ninanokkija apelsin (Nose Pickers Orange) (Estonia), dir Birgit Demidova
Third Prize – ex aequo
Herr Kameramann (Mr. Camera Man) (Germany), dir Paul Wiersbinski
Ohne Titel (Untitled) (Germany), dir Anna Berger

Animation Film
First Prize
Ein Spiel unter Freunden (A Game Between Friends) (Germany), dir Andreas Pistner
Second Prize
Georg wächst (George Grows) (Germany), dir Martin Schmidt
Third Prize – ex aequo
No Fish (Germany), dir Baoying Liu
Final Journey (Germany), dir Lars Zimmermann

Robert Bosch Foundation Promotional Prizes for Joint Film Productions Between Young German and Eastern/Southeastern Filmmakers
Short Feature Film
Freundschaft – Przyjazn (Friendship) (Germany/Poland), dir Nicole Volpert, prod Joanna Kollbek, Jamila Wenske
Documentary Film
Normal – estnische und deutsche Lebenswelten (Normal – Estonia and German Life Styles) (Germany/Estonia), dir Volker Maria Engel, Ülo Pikkov, Sandra van Slooten, Heilika Vösu, prod Sandra van Slooten, Heilika Vösu
Animation Film
Anna Blume (Germany/Bulgaria), dir Vessela Dantscheva, prod Ebele Okoye