Srdan Golubovic's thriller The Trap, Kirill Serebrennikov's black comedy Playing The Victim and the world premiere of Pulat Ahmatov's Ragtime..., a depiction of everday life for two young Russian women in a small frontier town, are among 10 feature films and six documentaries selected for the main competition of the goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film which begins tonight in Wiesbaden.

The competition's awards with prize-money totalling almost $40,030 (Euros 30,000) will be decided on by an international jury headed by veteran Romanian director Lucian Pintilie and including UK producer Keith Griffiths, German actress Franziska Petri, Serbian film critic Boris Andjelic and Croatian director Ivona Juka, the winner of the 2006 documentary award for Facing The Day.

This year's festival, which is one of the leading international showcases for Central and Eastern European cinema, will be casting a spotlight on the work of Albanian director Fatmir Koci and dedicating an homage to Milos Forman on the occasion of his 75th birthday with the screening of such early films as Competition and Black Peter (1963), The Firemen's Ball (1967), and his first US film Taking Off (1971).

In addition, goEast has joined forces with the European Cultural Foundation and the Goethe Institut to support the setting up of the Southeast Europe Documentary Network, which intends to develop strategies for independent critical documentaries that do not shrink from tackling taboo subjects and to encourage projects across borders.

During the festival, a two-day workshop will therefore bring experts together from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNMI Kosovo, Croatia, FYROM Macedonia, the Republic of Moldava and Serbia to analyse the situation of documentary filmmaking in Southeast Europe.

The Competition's complete lineup is:

Feature Films
186 Kilometres, dirs: Andres Maimik and Rain Tolk (Estonia)
Armin, dir: Ognen Svilicic (Croatia, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Euphoria, dir: Ivan Vyrypaev (Russia)
Fresh Air, dir: Agnes Kocsis (Hungary)
Playing The Victim, dir: Kirill Serebrennikov (Russia)
Pleasant Moments, dir: Vera Chytilova (Czech Republic)
The Bird Of Paradise, dirs: Talgat Asyrankolov and Gaziz Nasyrov (Kazakhstan, Kirghizia)
The Hostage, dir: Laila Pakalnina (Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia)
The Trap, dir: Srdan Golubovic (Serbia, Germany, Hungary)
What Sun Has Seen, dir: Michal Rosa (Poland)

Documentaries
How To Do It, dir: Marcel Losinski (Poland)
I Guess We'll Meet in The Eurocamp, dir: Erika Hnikova (Czech Republic) Industrial Elegy, dir: Daniela Gehova (Czech Republic)
Ragtime..., dir: Pulat Ahmatov (Russia)
The Art Of Selling, dirs: Jaak Kilmi and Andres Maimik (Estonia, Finland)
The Second Generation, dir: Amir Muratovic (Slovenia)

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