JFBB meets goEast

The Wiesbaden goEast film festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The focus is on films from Central and Eastern Europe. Mark Donskoy's THE TARAS FAMILY was also screened in the “Missing Images from Odesa to Dakar” series, which shows films that shed light on underrepresented perspectives on the Second World War to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war. Shot in 1944/45, the film was the first feature film in the world to focus on the extermination of the Jewish population - and one of the few Soviet films to focus on the Shoah. The plot centers on a family's resistance against the German occupation in the Donbas. Donskoy filmed at original locations in Babi Yar, among others.

Merlin Webers and Bernd Buder from the Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg visited Wiesbaden and met Heleen Gerritsen, the festival' current director. Gerritsen, who will take over as Artistic Director of the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek in June, will be part of the feature film jury at the upcoming JFBB.