GOEAST FILM FESTIVAL STARTS IN WIESBADEN

The goEast film festival opened on Wednesday evening in the Caligari cinema. More than 350 guests were present, as well as all the members of the distinguished festival jury, including jury president Jerzy Stuhr and the German actress Julia Jentsch.
The opening film SWEET RUSH offered a foretaste of the exciting programme awaiting visitors to goEast 2009. The release in Poland of this new film by masterly Polish director Andrzej Wajda coincided with the opening of goEast. SWEET RUSH is screening in the film theatre of the German Film Museum in Frankfurt on 23 April, and returns to the Caligari on 26 April. The goEast Competition opens today with the Estonian documentary ALYOSHA (2008) and the two features THE GIFT TO STALIN (Kazakhstan, 2008) and HELP GONE MAD (Russia, 2009). From 22.00 on, the directors and producers of today’s competition films are the guests of the film discussion hosted by Rudolf Worschech in Bellevue-Saal.
The 2009 goEast Symposium AFTER WINTER COMES SPRING. FILMS PRESAGING THE FALL OF THE WALL throws light on critical films made in Eastern Europe in the decades prior to the collapse of the communist regimes. The symposium begins in the impressive new Murnau-Filmtheater venue at 18.00 today.