This year’s goEast Symposium (23-26 April 2026) bears the title “Cinematic Strategies of Resistance” and focusses on political, aesthetic and historical forms of resistant film practice in the context of East-West relations and their global repercussions. In the scope of lectures and film screenings, it explores connections between historical perspectives and contemporary debates. The four-day program assembles and examines a highly diverse range of emancipatory film practices – from politization at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) in the pivotal period around 1968, through the upheavals of the transitional period of the late 1980s and early 1990s, to more recent protest movements in Belarus, Ukraine, Nigeria and Chile.
Symposium CINEMATIC STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
Lectures
Altes Gericht / Civilkammer
All lectures are free of charge and will be held in English.
FRIDAY 24.04
Cinematic Strategies of Resistance: Opening Lecture
Borjana Gaković, 10-11 Uhr
Rock / Paper / Scissors: Irena Vrkljan and the DFFB around 1968
Tobias Hering, 11-12 Uhr
The Road of the Revolution – A Film Discussion
Jan Eilhardt, 12-13 Uhr
SATURDAY 25.04
From Protest to Film Language: The Rise of Modern Ukrainian Cinema
Vika Leshchenko, 10-11 Uhr
‘Left Out’—Notes on Unofficial Film in the Final Phase of DDR Socialism. Lecture with case studies.
Dr. Claus Löser, 11-12 Uhr
Invisible Docs from the Frontline – Film as a Tool of Workers Resistance in Serbia
Ivan Velisavljević, 12-13 Uhr
How I Became a Documentary Chronicler of the Serbian Student Movement
Senka Domanović, 13-14 Uhr
Altes Gericht / Civilkammer
SUNDAY 26.04
Videograms of a Revolution – An Archive and Its Manifold Uses
Christian Ferencz-Flatz, 10-11 Uhr
Signals of Resistance. How Fekete Doboz (Black Box) Turned Video into a Weapon Against the Dictatorship
Zsuzsa Zádori, 11-12 Uhr
To Dream Through the In-Betweens: Cinema as Trance and Intervention
Timoteus Angawann Kusno, 12-13 Uhr
Unfinished: Art and Revolution
Tara Najd Ahmadi, Murnau 17 Uhr
Films from the 2026 Symposium
OSKAR LANGENFELD. 12 MAL.
Director: Holger Meins
BRD 1966
BERLIN NOT FOR SALE
Director: Irena Vrkljan
BRD 1967
THEIR NEWSPAPERS
Director: Harun Farocki
BRD 1967
BERLIN
Director: Irena Vrkljan
BRD 1969
BROTHERS AND SISTERS
Director: Pavel Schnabel
DEU 1991
DO YOU KNOW SUNDAY-MONDAY?
Director: Lívia Gyarmathy
HUN 1969
OCCUPIED CINEMA
Director: Senka Domanović
HRV, SRB 2018
DISAPPEARING
Director: Andrina Mračnikar
AUT, SVN 2022
NO TOMORROW TODAY
Directors: Antonia Sánchez, Vicente Fres
CHL 2021
THE YEAR OF THE CANNIBALS
Director: Liliana Cavani
ITA 1969
I WAS CALLED TO THE BALL
Director: Studio Tatjana
BLR 2005
FLOWERS OF UKRAINE
Director: Adelina Borets
POL, UKR 2024
VIDEOGRAMS OF A REVOLUTION
Directors: Harun Farocki, Andrei Ujică
DEU, ROU 1992
THE NEWBORNS
Director: Kianoush Ayari
IRN 1979
COCONUT HEAD GENERATION
Director: Alain Kassanda
FRA, NGA 2023
AFTERLIVES
Director: Timoteus Anggawan Kusno
IDN 2024
