In 1986, filmmaker Ruth Beckermann took part in the protests against Kurt Waldheim, Austrian presidential candidate and former Secretary-General of the United Nations. An unabashed Waldheim, in the face of mounting evidence of his involvement with the SS during the Second World War, parries with ...

Rain on a window pane, a fire truck, a tomcat with innumerable offspring: it is an intentionally unintentional gaze that allows for chance encounters, for stories and memories – leads that Ruth Beckermann follows across Europe and the Mediterranean. Nigerian asylum seekers in Sicily, an Arab musi...

An epic panorama of America after the election of Barack Obama. American Passages is an associative journey through the U.S. that begins in New York on election day and ends in Las Vegas at the roulette table. Disillusioned Iraqi war veterans, gay adoptive fathers, Black judges, white party anima...

At the Wailing Wall or in the spotlight of a stage, wearing a Zorro costume or a designer dress, solemn or rollicking: crossing the threshold to the adult world can take place in very different ways. This film accompanies four 12-year-olds — Sharon, Tom, Moishy and Sophie — as they prepare for th...

Marc-Aurel-Street in Vienna: here you’ll find the few remaining Jewish merchants in the former textile quarter, the Iranian hotel keeper, and Café Salzgries with its regulars. Ruth Beckermann spent a year undertaking a series of small journeys in front of her own doorstep, exploring her own immed...

An essay film about Empress Elisabeth of Austria’s attempts to vanish from the picture. A film about Orientalism and of a woman on the road. Shot in Egypt, the film features a text written by the filmmaker and music from the Kronos-Quartet. The camera slips into the role of the flaneur who, witho...

White-tiled rooms, neon lighting, on the walls the black and white photographs of the exhibition “War of Extermination”, which documents the atrocities committed by the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. Against this background, Ruth Beckermann films former soldiers talking about their experi...

What became of the dream of the Jewish homeland? A still relevant documentary road movie shot along the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Trucks, gas stations, construction workers, soldiers, Russian immigrants, taxi drivers, security guards: encounters along a 60 kilometer stretch of road ...

Ruth Beckermann’s exploration of her own family past is both the story of the Central European Jews and a history of the region. Her journey takes her from Vienna, where her grandmother lived in hiding during the war amongst the Nazis by posing as a deaf-mute, to the landscapes of Eastern Europe,...

A master storyteller remembers his youth in Vienna. Franz West (1900 –1985) recalls his Jewish family, his commitment to the workers' movement in Red Vienna along with the rise of Austro-Fascism and National Socialism. His memories of the diverse Jewish population of the so-called “Matzah Island”...

On March 28th, 1981, 10.000 people in the city of Judenburg take to the streets to fight for their jobs at the steel plant that is threatened with closure. The film shows how the international steel crisis affected Austria. How are those facing imminent job loss affected by the situation? How doe...

In the Semperit tyre factory, the only strike after World War II takes place in May 1978, lasting for three weeks. The film shows the course of the strike in interviews, photos, graphics and talks at a pub; it draws attention to the position of the union between its loyalty to the workers and its...

A derelict slaughterhouse in Vienna hosts cabaret shows by the Vienna Festival in 1975. As the shows come to an end in 1976, the audience are encouraged to stay and squat the buildings to prevent their destruction. ARENA SQUATTED observes the squatting, the organisation of collective work, negoti...