Website for goEast’s OPPOSE OTHERING!

Website for goEast’s OPPOSE OTHERING!

Project Goes Live

The 16th edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film (April 20th – 26th 2016) in Wiesbaden, Germany, saw the launch of the human rights oriented project OPPOSE OTHERING!, made possible with the support of Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (Foundation EVZ). Five young international directorial duo teams from Germany and Central and Eastern Europe are currently in the process of completing films that confront the phenomenon of focussed misanthropy directed at groups – also known as „othering”. The project website www.oppose-othering.de is now also online to document the film projects as they develop and to create and host an active network with further content related to the issues in question.

Whether it is Brexit, the recent election in the USA, radical Islamism or the rise of populist, extreme right-wing groups here at home or in Eastern Europe as well – all of these phenomena make it very clear that we all have to fight actively for solidarity, access to society for all, justice and equal rights all across the world. With the support of Foundation EVZ, goEast is making a contribution in this regard: the festival’s own project OPPOSE OTHERING! confronts a wide range of forms of othering using the means of cinema – with the aim of shedding light on the marginalisation of individuals of different social, religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds and/or sexual orientations and gender identities. In doing so, the films should above all show positive examples of solidarity and civil courage, featuring individuals and/or projects that are passionately committed to opposing discrimination against their fellow humans who have been branded as „different”.

Ten international directorial duo teams from Germany and Central and Eastern Europe attended goEast Film Festival in Wiesbaden in April, where they took part in an extensive workshop and film program. Five of these nominated tandems were chosen by a jury to receive production grants for the realisation of their film ideas. These winning tandems are currently in the process of completing their films, which will celebrate their premieres at goEast 2017 (April 26th to May 2nd). Among other stories featured in these films, a German-Russian directorial duo accompanied transgender vocal training courses in Berlin and Moscow for instance, while a Romanian-German tandem team chose to take a critical look at touristic images of the other and psychological projections at work in a so-called Roma „ethno-village” in Romania.

The project website will be successively filled with trailers for the tandem films, information on the directorial teams and their films and finally with the completed films themselves. Moreover, the site is intended to become a platform where like-minded amateurs, human rights activists, professional filmmakers and individuals from all layers of society, young and old alike, can contribute their own short films, clips and web videos, thus joining the cause as OPPOSE OTHERING! Allies and helping to gain wider exposure for the idea behind the project.

In addition, OPPOSE OTHERING! has begun to build up a network of partner film festivals and partner institutions. Among those who have already pledged to participate in this network are for instance the Kiev-based film festival Docudays UA, the Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival, the NGO Sarajevo Open Centre, FilmFestival Cottbus and the documentary film platform East Silver Market, Prague. Thematically related news and contributions from the network will also be published on the website and the project partners will help to tap into new target audiences for the completed films.

Press contact:
Gaby Babic
presse@filmfestival-goEast.de
Tel.: +49-611-236 843 11
Fax: +49-611-236 843 49

Deutsches Filminstitut – DIF e.V.
goEast – Festival des mittel- und osteuropäischen Films
Schaumainkai 41
60596 Frankfurt am Main

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