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.
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The Dreamed Ones
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In the intimacy of a Viennese studio, two young actors revive the literary scene and atmosphere of the post-war period through their reading of the correspondence between Romanian Jewish poet Paul Celan and Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann, daughter of a former National Socialist Party activist.
The Waldheim Waltz
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When Austrian diplomat and former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim announced he was running for president in 1986, the news was greeted with joy and seen as a safe bet by his fellow countrymen and women. That is, until his Nazi past was revealed – an awkward detail he’d conveniently forgotten to mention during all his years in public office. Despite some people’s stupefaction and protests, ul...
Mutzenbacher
Through a newspaper advertisement, Ruth Beckermann organizes a casting for a film based on a well-known pornographic text. For over a hundred years, the novel _Josefine Mutzenbacher or The Story of a Viennese Whore_ has been the subject of controversy for its lustful depiction of child and female sexuality. Although it was banned for a time, it has also been celebrated as an important work of V...
American Passages
_American Passages_ is an collective journey through the United States: a disillusioned Iraq veteran, gay adoptive fathers, black judges, white party animals and a pimp at a casino table in Las Vegas. The extreme contrasts of black and white, rich and poor, winners and losers are often as surprising as the meaning of the constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness in these times of crisis....
The Dreamed Ones
Subscription access
In the intimacy of a Viennese studio, two young actors revive the literary scene and atmosphere of the post-war period through their reading of the correspondence between Romanian Jewish poet Paul Celan and Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann, daughter of a former National Socialist Party activist.
The Waldheim Waltz
Subscription access
When Austrian diplomat and former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim announced he was running for president in 1986, the news was greeted with joy and seen as a safe bet by his fellow countrymen and women. That is, until his Nazi past was revealed – an awkward detail he’d conveniently forgotten to mention during all his years in public office. Despite some people’s stupefaction and protests, ul...
Mutzenbacher
Through a newspaper advertisement, Ruth Beckermann organizes a casting for a film based on a well-known pornographic text. For over a hundred years, the novel _Josefine Mutzenbacher or The Story of a Viennese Whore_ has been the subject of controversy for its lustful depiction of child and female sexuality. Although it was banned for a time, it has also been celebrated as an important work of V...
American Passages
_American Passages_ is an collective journey through the United States: a disillusioned Iraq veteran, gay adoptive fathers, black judges, white party animals and a pimp at a casino table in Las Vegas. The extreme contrasts of black and white, rich and poor, winners and losers are often as surprising as the meaning of the constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness in these times of crisis....
