Ruth Beckermann

Motivation

Kinoatelje awards the 2013 Darko Bratina Award to Austrian director Ruth Beckermann for her comprehensive exploration and creation in film, book crafting, and audiovisual installations. The author persistently deals with unresolved chapters of our society—whether they are questions of displacement, the American dream, Jewish tradition, growing up, Austrians' attitudes towards collaboration with Nazism, or exploring her own history—which mirrors the question of the multiculturalism of European identity. Ruth Beckermann's documentary approach is primarily marked by a distance from the filmed material, which does not seek to present ready-made conclusions. This returns the voice to the individual and demands that the viewer forms their own opinions and judgments. The author does not spare herself either. In her exploration of her own Jewish culture, she is capable of great self-reflection, self-criticism, and even self-irony. Ruth Beckermann reveals society to us; her unique quality is precisely her insightful social criticism, which asks the right questions while leaving us to find the answers.

Selected filmography

2013 Those who go those who stay (Austria)
2012 Jackson/Marker 4am, (Austria)
2011 American Passages (Austria)
2006 Zorro's Bar Mizwa (Austria)
2006 Mozart enigma (Austria)
2000 Homemad(e) (Austria)
1999 A Fleeting Passage to the Orient (Austria)
1996 East of War (Austria)
1991 Towards Jerusalem (Austria)
1987 Paper Bridge (Austria)
1983 Return to Vienna (Austria)
1981 The steel hammer out there on the grass (Austria)
1978 Suddenly, a strike (Austria)
1977 Arena Squatted (Austria)

Installations

Leben! Juden in Wien nach 1945, Jüdisches Museum Wien, 2008
Europamemoria – Memories of Europa, Trgovski dom, Gorizia/Gorica, 2014
Maison des Arts Créteil, Paris, 2006 Museum Moderner Kunst,

Books

Juden in Wien nach 1945, Wien, 2008
Unzugehörig: Österreicher und Juden nach 1945; Wien, 2005
Jenseits des Krieges: Ehemalige Wehrmachtsoldaten erinnern sich, Wien, 1998
Ohne Untertitel Fragmente einer Geschichte des österreichischen Kinos, Wien, 1996
Die Mazzesinsel: Juden in der Wiener Leopoldstadt 1918-38, Wien, 1984