Ruth Beckermann

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Ruth Beckermann (2018)

Ruth Beckermann (* 1952 in Vienna ) is an Austrian documentary filmmaker and author .

Live and act

Beckermann in the occupied Audi-Max of the University of Vienna during the student protests in 2009
Ruth Beckermann at the premiere of Those Who Go Those Who Stay ( Viennale 2013)

Beckermann studied in Vienna and Tel Aviv journalism and art history and received his doctorate in 1977. Dr. phil . In New York she studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and also worked as an editor for the magazines Die Weltwoche and Trend .

Her first film was made in 1977 in collaboration with the video group Arena. Filmed on video and 16 mm film documented Arena occupies the occupation of the former Vienna slaughterhouse Arena . In the following year she founded the film distributor Filmladen with two colleagues , where she worked for seven years. 1978 and 1981 followed with Auf amoi a Strik and The Hammer is on the meadow out there, two short documentaries on the subject of work and strike, shot on 16 mm film. Her first books were written during this time.

In 1983 she set the starting point for a film trilogy with Vienna Return , in which she traced individual and collective lines of connection across different cultures with Jewish identity. The other films in the series are Die Papierene Brücke (1987) and Nach Jerusalem (1990) in which traveling, being on the move, formal principle and content are all at the same time in different forms. In Beyond the War (1996) she had former Wehrmacht soldiers report on their experiences beyond the "normal" war. The film not only contributed to the destruction of the myth of the “decent” Wehrmacht (see the discussions on the Wehrmacht exhibition from 1995), but also shed light on the construction of history in the post-war period .

In A Fleeting Train to the Orient (1999) Beckermann dealt with Elisabeth, Empress of Austria , as a woman who did not want to take her place in the corset of her society and who gave rise to a myth between the fairytale-like Cinderella and the depressive puppet of the monarchy. From the summer of 1999 to the spring of 2000 she then went on a “little trip to her own doorstep” in Vienna, filming the last Jewish trader in the former textile district, an Iranian hotelier and in Café Salzgries with his regulars. homemad (e) was published in 2001 and also documents the political and social change that went hand in hand with the participation of the FPÖ in the Federal Government of Schüssel I from 1999 onwards.

As part of the Viennale '06 , Zorros Bar Mitzvah celebrated its premiere, in which she accompanied four twelve-year-olds on the way to her Bar Mitzvah . She presented American Passages at the 2011 Cinéma du réel documentary film festival at the Center Georges-Pompidou in Paris . In 2016, Die Traumten ran in the main program of the 66th Berlinale . A young man ( Laurence Rupp ) and a young woman ( Anja Plaschg ) read from the love letters that Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan wrote to each other over almost 20 years. At the Diagonale 2016 the film was awarded as the best feature film. In the same year the Austrian Film Museum devoted a retrospective to Beckermann's oeuvre.

In February 2018, Waldheim's waltz premiered during the 68th Berlinale in the Forum series and was awarded the Glashütte Original Documentary Award for best documentary film. The film, consisting of historical recordings from the time of the Federal President's election in Austria in 1986 and material shot by Beckermann himself, is an analysis of "the unmasking of the former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim " (see Waldheim affair ). It deals with lies and truth in society and politics, so-called “ alternative facts ”, so that anti-Semitic and populist propaganda were ultimately used successfully during an election campaign and shows the mechanisms for mobilizing inflammatory feelings.

Beckermann is a co-founder of the Austrian Documentary Filmmaker's Interest Group and was its chairperson until 2008. She has taught at the University of Salzburg , the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Applied Arts Vienna . In autumn 2007 her films appeared in a DVD edition. She lives and works as a freelance writer and filmmaker in Vienna and France.

In 2019 she received an invitation to membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , which awards the Oscar .

Filmography

Ruth Beckermann directed the following films, unless otherwise stated.

Video / short films
  • 1977: Arena occupied (director together with Josef Aichholzer and Franz Grafl ; 75 min)
  • 1978: On amol a strike (with Josef Aichholzer; 24 min)
  • 1981: The hammer is on the meadow outside (with Josef Aichholzer, Michael Stejskal ; 40 min)
  • 1985: The Hedgehog (with students of the History Workshop Salzburg; 37 min) with Leni Egger, Resi Pesendorfer , Maria Plieseis
  • 2003: europamemoria (video installation and DVD)
  • 2006: Mozart Enigma (contribution to the Vienna Mozart Year; 1 min)
Feature films and documentaries
  • 1983: Vienna return (with Josef Aichholzer; documentary, 91 min)
  • 1987: The paper bridge (documentary, 91 min)
  • 1990: To Jerusalem (documentary, 84 min)
  • 1996: Beyond the War (documentary, 112 min)
  • 1999: A Fleeting Train to the Orient (with Josef Aichholzer; documentary, 82 min)
  • 2001: Homemad (e) (also screenplay; feature film, 85 min)
  • 2006: Zorros Bar Mitzvah (documentary, 90 min)
  • 2011: American Passages (documentary, 121 min)
  • 2013: Those Who Go Those Who Stay (documentary)
  • 2016: The dreamed (engl. "The Dreamed Ones", experimental film / documentary, 89 min)
  • 2018: Waldheim's Waltz ("The Waldheim Waltz", documentary, 93 min)

bibliography

Book publications by Ruth Beckermann, sorted by year of first publication:

  • The Mazzesinsel - Jews in Vienna's Leopoldstadt 1918–38. Löcker Verlag, Vienna 1984, ISBN 978-3854090687
  • Not belonging - Austrians and Jews after 1945. Löcker Verlag, Vienna 1989
  • Without subtitles - fragments of a history of Austrian cinema. Sonderzahl Verlag, Vienna 1996 (Ed. Together with Christa Blümlinger)
  • Beyond the war - former Wehrmacht soldiers remember. Döcker Verlag, Vienna 1998
  • europamemoria - memories of Europe. Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2003 (with Stefan Grissemann)

Articles in other publications:

  • Strawberries in Chernivtsi. In: Christoph Ransmayr (Ed.): In the blind angle - news from Central Europe. Vienna 1985
  • On the identity of the Viennese Jews after 1945. In: Gerhard Botz, Ivar Oxaal, Michael Pollak (eds.): A destroyed culture - Jewish life and anti-Semitism in Vienna since the 19th century. Buchloe 1990
  • La glorieuse resistance autrichienne et l'oublie des juifs. In: Austriaca No. 31, Rouen 12/1990 (French)
  • Par-dessus les ponts. In: Autrement. Paris 1991 (French)
  • Jean Amery and Austria. In: Dagmar Lorenz, Gabriele Weinberger: Insiders and Outsiders - Jewish and Gentile Culture in Germany and Austria. Detroit 1994 (English)
  • Exclusion and Inclusion - For the production of the own and the foreign in the post-war years. In: Wolfgang Kos, Georg Rigele (Eds.): Inventory 45/55, Sonderzahl Verlag, Vienna 1996
  • 1938: During the Austrian "Anschluss" to the Third Reich Friedrich Torberg escapes from Prague, first to Zurich and then to Paris . Translation to English. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1997, pp. 551-557
  • A l'Est de la guerre - Journal de tournage. In: Trafic, Revue de Cinéma No. 35, Paris 2000
  • Austria speaks - text collage. In: Rubina Möhring (Ed.): Austria alone at home - politics, media and justice after the political change. Frankfurt, London 2001, pp. 193-206
  • On the bridge. Speech on the presentation of the Manès Sperber Prize, in: The German Quarterly, vol. 74/1, Michigan State University (English)

Audio

Video

Awards

Film awards (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Ruth Beckermann  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cinéma du réel
  2. ↑ Deutschlandfunk of April 4, 2011: "Cinéma du Réel" - the real cinema The 33rd International Documentary Film Festival in the Center Pompidou in Paris
  3. ↑ Berlinale 2016 program
  4. ↑ orf.at - Diagonale prices to Beckermann and Steiner . Article dated March 12, 2016, accessed March 13, 2016.
  5. ↑ Austrian Film Museum : Ruth Beckermann retrospective in the Filmmuseum, December 2016 , accessed March 10, 2017
  6. ↑ Austrian Film Institute : Press booklet for “Waldheims Walzer” , February 2018
  7. ↑ dok.at
  8. ↑ From Beckermann to Gaga: 842 new members for the Oscar Academy. July 2, 2019, accessed July 3, 2019 .
  9. ↑ The Austrian Art Prize . Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  10. ↑ orf.at - Filmmaker Beckermann awarded the Cross of Honor . Article dated October 9, 2015, accessed October 9, 2015.
  11. ↑ Prize winners Austrian Film Prize 2019 . Accessed January 30, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Beckermann, Ruth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian documentary filmmaker and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna