The films of Ruth Beckermann

Ruth Beckermann is an Austrian writer and filmmaker born in 1952 to Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust. After studying journalism and art history, she completed her doctorate in literature. She then worked as a journalist for several newspapers in Austria and Switzerland. In 1978, together with two colleagues, she founded the film distribution company Filmladen, where she worked for seven years. During this period, she shot her first films and wrote her first books. Ruth Beckermann has been working as a freelance writer and filmmaker since 1985. She is particularly interested in the Jewish question, devoting a trilogy to it with Return to Vienna (1983), The Paper Bridge (1987) and Towards Jerusalem (1990). In 2014, her film Those Who Go, Those Who Stay won the Grand Prize for Documentary Film at the Diagonale in Graz. Two years later, The Dreamed Ones was also honoured there as Best Feature. In 2018, her documentary The Waldheim Waltz received several awards, including the Glashütte Prize for Best Documentary Film at the Berlinale. In 2022, her film Mutzenbacher was presented in the Encounters competition at the Berlinale and won the Best Film prize.