goEast

About

Founded in 2001, this festival of Central and Eastern European films forms a most promising supplement to the more traditional Cottbus Film Festival, which takes place approx. six months later. Thanks to close connections to the German Film Institute (Deutsches Filminstitut) in Frankfurt, the organizers have very profound background information at their disposal. In addition to the competition section and its three awards, the symposium and the retrospective, the student film sidebar also attracts extensive PR and media attention. Directors are invited directly by the festival, which covers travel and accomodation costs.

Awards

• Award for Best Film
• Award of the city of Wiesbaden for Best Director
• Award of the Federal Foreign Office for Cultural Diversity
• International Film Critic's Awards (FIPRESCI-Prize) for fiction feature AND documentary films
• Open Frame Award (5,000 euros, donated by the BHF-BANK Foundation) for VR film. 

Rules

• Films from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe including the republics of the former Soviet Union as well as co-productions with substantial participation from these countries (goEast countries).
• The date of completion must be after 1 January 2023
• No distribution or TV-broadcasting in Germany before the time of the festival.
• Submission is to be made via Filmfreeway

VR Competition: 

• Experimental Virtual Reality films
• Entries from the following Central and Eastern European countries are eligible for competition at goEast: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.
• Works of young and emerging artists of up to 35 years of age
• The submitted works should be current productions from the years 2023 or 2024.
• The duration of a work may not exceed 30 minutes.

• Applications will not be considered complete unless they include a short synopsis, a biography and a filmography of the director/artist.

Subtitle language: English. 

Premiere Requirements

National premiere required.

Jury and Organizers

Heleen Gerritsen - FESTIVAL DIRECTOR

Dominik Streib - PROGRAMME COORDINATOR