For the fifth consecutive year, the goEast Film Festival is set to present the RheinMain Short Film Award, carrying a prize of €2,500. A regional festival jury of three members will select the winner, focusing on films from the post-Soviet space. Notable entries include The Late Wind by Shugyla Serzhan, which portrays a young Kazakh woman navigating a city engulfed by protests, and Baigal Nuur – Lake Baikal, an animation by Alisi Telengut that explores the Siberian lake’s history through the voice of a Buriatian woman speaking a threatened language. The documentary Chornobyl 22 by Oleksiy Radynski, featuring covert recordings from Chernobyl’s takeover, is another compelling entry.
The goEast programme also highlights the challenges faced by filmmakers from Kosovo and Albania, focusing on their cinematic output and intertwined histories. Despite significant international acclaim, Kosovar filmmakers struggle with limited funding and visa issues due to the non-universal recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty. This year’s goEast showcases a selection of influential Albanian-language films, tracing the cultural and societal evolution of the region from the Yugoslav era to the present. Featured films include Dear Enemy, The Guardian, and more recent works like I Love You More and Looking for Venera.
The festival’s Symposium section, titled «The Other Queers – Cinematic Images from the Periphery of Europe,» will explore queer cinema with a focus on the non-Western narrative. Curated by Jasmina Šepetavc and Yulia Serdyukova, it challenges the dominant discourse that often portrays Eastern Europe as homogeneously homophobic and the West as progressively tolerant. The Symposium will feature films and discussions that highlight the diverse and complex attitudes towards LGBTQ+ issues in Eastern Europe, providing a more nuanced understanding of the region’s cinematic and cultural landscape.
The film lineup for the Symposium includes historical and contemporary works that address marginalisation and queerness, such as Five Minutes of Paradise, Dubravka, Kill Me Gently, and A Severe Young Man. These films, alongside short film programs from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and former Yugoslavia, illustrate the rich, varied expressions of queer identities in Eastern European cinema. The Symposium will also feature a unique performance by the artists’ collective krёlex zentre and a compilation of music videos from Eastern Europe’s queer, alternative scene, further enriching the festival’s diverse offerings.
By showcasing these films and discussions, goEast celebrates regional cinema and fosters a deeper understanding of the social and political dynamics that influence film production in these areas. This initiative is part of the festival’s broader mission to highlight and amplify marginalised voices and narratives, promoting a richer, more inclusive cultural dialogue within the cinematic world.
