The Paper Bridge
1987 | 92 min | Documentary
A journey through Austrian filmmaker Ruth Beckermann's own family's history and at the same time, the story of Central Europe's Jews and of a region.
Betty Beckermann
ActorRuth Beckermann is an acclaimed Austrian filmmaker and writer. Born in 1952 in Vienna, she has made a significant impact on the international documentary film scene. She studied journalism, history, and art history in Vienna, Tel Aviv, and New York. Beckermann's work often deals with themes of memory, history, and Jewish identity. Notable films include "The Dreamed Ones" (2016), a poetic documentary about the love letters between poets Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, and "The Waldheim Waltz" (2018), a powerful examination of Austria's coming to terms with its Nazi past, which won the Best Documentary Award at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival. Her unique storytelling and engaging visual style have earned her critical acclaim and numerous awards in the film industry.
Films
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Towards Jerusalem
1990 | 85 min | Documentary
The film moves from the lights of Tel Aviv discos to the immigrant housing of Ethiopians to the burial site of Samuel the Prophet, capturing the voices and vistas of contemporary Israeli culture and politics.(National Center for Jewish Film) "An expressive overview of Israel in 1990" (Süddeutsche Zeitung) What became of the dream of a Jewish homeland? In this documentary road movie, Austrian filmmaker Ruth Beckermann records the diverse views and activities of Israelis and Arabs as she travels ...
The Waldheim Waltz
2018 | 94 min | Documentary
Lies. Truth. Alternative Facts. This film analyses how the UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim’s wartime past was revealed by the World Jewish Congress. Ruth Beckermann documents the tangled web that ensnared former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim when he concealed two years of his wartime biography. It shows the swift succession of new allegations by the World Jewish Congress against him, the denial by the Austrian political class, and the outbreak of antisemitism and patriotism which led to ...
Homemad(e)
2001 | 85 min | Documentary
Acclaimed Austrian documentary director Ruth Beckermann portrays a dying culture of Viennese urban history. The entertaining as well as insightful doc was shown at Berlinale. The Marc-Aurel-Street in Vienna. The last Jewish shop owner in the former textile disctrict, the Iranian hotelier, the cafe Salzgries with its regular customers. From summer 1999 until spring 2000, Ruth Beckermann made little trips to explore her home district with the camera. The film is also a document about the political ...
Children Below Deck
2018 | 94 min | Documentary
Director Bettina Henkel's family originates in Latvia. Together with her father, a psychoanalyst, she embarks on a journey to her roots, which brings to light traumatic experiences of displacement and loss, but also unpleasant truths about her own family. Touching on the subject of trans-generational trauma, the film traces the history of a this little-known part of Europe through dialogue between father and daughter. "An emotional road movie about deep-seated wounds caused by the historical upheavals ...
A Fleeting Passage To The Orient
1999 | 82 min | Biography
Rigorous and engrossing, Ruth Beckermann's documentary retraces the steps of Austria's restless "sad empress" Elizabeth during trips to Egypt in both 1885 and 1891. When the camera gazes from the deck of the ship towards the endless horizon of the Mediterranean, the image of a woman who travelled the globe without pause takes shape. Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, also gradually disappears from view, as it were: from the age of 30 she refused to be photographed.
On the margins
2015 | 82 min | Documentary
In Margina, Ljupcho Temelkovski accompanies a Roma family in Macedonia. The film observes the laborious everyday life of the characters, marked by deprivation, humiliation and racism. The many-member family lives together in cramped conditions. The men try to earn money with informal odd jobs and show great talent for improvisation. Margina was shot over a long period of time with a 3-person team. The film succeeds in getting surprisingly close to the people in their private everyday lives. The ...
My Two Polish Loves
2016 | 50 min | Queer
Tali embarks on an intimate journey to Lodz, Poland, to retrace her personal roots. At the center are her two Polish loves: her lover Magda, and her late grandmother Silvia. Berlin-based Tali Tiller is accompanied by her German-Polish partner Magda. The documentary explores how memories of the Holocaust and war are lived, told and passed down from generation to generation of women.
Yugoslavia – How Ideology Moved Our Collective Body
2013 | 62 min | Documentary
Tracing changes in the social system from socialist Yugoslavia to Serbia, the film looks at how ideology performed itself in public space through mass performances. For this research-based essay film Popivoda collected and analyzed film and video footage from the period of Yugoslavia (1945 – 2000), focusing state performances such as youth work actions, May Day parades, celebrations of the Youth Day, as well as counter-demonstrations, in particular the 1968 student demonstrations, the civic demonstrations ...
How to Shoot a President?
1991 | 34 min | Icons & Media Art
How does one film a dictator? Klaus Dörrie created a fascinating historical document about the Polish General Jaruzelski, the last Polish president not elected democratically. Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland in 1981 and was forced to resign in 1990. The advisors of the last communist Polish president thought they would get director Klaus Dörries to shoot a propaganda film about President Jaruzelski. But Dörries outsmarted them with his cameras by filming behind the scenes and showing, ...
Return to Vienna
1983 | 91 min | Documentary
“In my personal life I lived through different stages. There was one period determined by football, nothing but football; each Sunday we would go to see a match and I myself played in a team. Then came another period: politics. A very strong interest in politics and the attempt to understand this world that I only knew from party names so far. Contrary to today, people at the time had a very good feeling for who was a Jew. Today, with so few Jews around this is no longer so. Types like myself, with ...