29/03/2007

Andrea Staka’s Fraulein [+see also:
trailer
film profile] opened the 7th goEast Film Festival (March 28-April 3) yesterday evening in Wiesbaden.

The German/Swiss/Bosnian-Herzegovan production on the daily life and doubts of three Yugoslavian women in Switzerland is one of 150 features and shorts from 20 countries at the festival.

Ten features and six documentaries will screen in competition, among which films from first-time directors, such as Hungarian director Ágnes Kocsis’s colourful and sensual film on the life of a toilet attendant, Fresh Air [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], and Euphoria by Russian director Ivan Vyrypaev, which screened at the 2006 Venice Film Festival.

Other competition titles include Andres Maimik and Rain Tolk’s Estonian comedy 186 Kilometres [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which is making its international premiere at the festival; two co-productions by directors from the former Yugoslavia Armin [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Ognjen Svilicic and The Trap [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Srdan Golubovic; Latvian/Estonian/Slovenian co-production The Hostage [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Laila Pakalnina, a sort of thriller with a perfectly-mastered frenzied rhythm; Marcel Lozinski’s Polish film How To Do It, whose unscrupulous hero is strongly reminiscent of the theme of Jaak Kilmi and Andres Maimik’s Finnish/Estonian film The Art of Selling, which illustrates the talents the young and manipulative new recruits of East European turbo-capitalism; and Pleasant Moments by acclaimed Czech New Wave director Vera Chytilová.

I Guess We'll Meet in the Eurocamp, a documentary by fellow Czech helmer Erika Hníková, and Amir Muratovic’s The Second Generation, on the children of Yugoslav immigrants in Slovenia, complete the selection.

To celebrate the 75th birthday of Milos Forman, goEast will devote a tribute to the Czech director, which will present his earlier, but least known, films.

In the Highlights 2007 sidebar the German public will have the chance to discover Eastern European films that have done very well both domestically and on the international festival circuit.

Katharina Thalbach, the star of Volker Schlöndorff’s latest film, Strike, about the birth of the Polish Solidarity movement, will also attend the festival.

(Translated from French)