Gertraud Luschützky

Marc Aurel-Straße in Vienna: The last surviving Jewish textile merchant in the former textile district, the Iranian hotel proprietor and the Café Salzgries and its regulars. Between the summer of 1999 and spring 2000, Ruth Beckermann undertook a series of small journeys on and around her own doorstep and investigated her local area with the help of a film crew. This documentary film also gives an insight into the political changes when a far right Party joined the Government coalition in Austria.

Images of Egypt: prolonged tracking shots through the streets of Cairo, cafes, bazars, hotels and gardens, footage of the desert and the sea. Ruth Beckermann is on the trail of Empress Elisabeth of Austria ("Sissi"), who travelled the world restlessly and was in Egypt incognito one hundred years earlier. Since Elisabeth refused to be photographed after the age of 31, she inspires projections and fantasies.

White-tiled rooms, neon lighting; on the walls black and white photographs documenting the atrocities committed by the german Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in WW2. Against this background former soldiers talk about their experiences beyond the bounds of "normal" warfare. An uncompromising film on remembrance and oblivion.

Paul, on receiving a phone call from his girlfriend, tears himself away from his workaholic life and sets off for Italy. On the road he settles down at the wheel, listens to the hum of the tires on the asphalt and enjoys the journey. But he is held up by a breakdown. By the time he arrives, his girlfriend has already left. Longing to see her he lingers on, and while he passes the time he experiences moments of unexpected delight. His waiting turns into a voyage of indulgence. His longing grows and tantalizes.

In this documentary road movie, Austrian filmmaker Ruth Beckermann records the diverse views and activities of Israelis and Arabs as she travels along the route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Why does Fred look like Charly who looks like Gernot who looks like Udo who looks like Erwin who looks like Leopold who resembles Ferdinand?

In his film, Josef Aichholzer observes the search for the perfect body, the golden calf of the leisure society: Meditation, sport, medicine or gene technology may be used but the goal remains the same: the individual gets a sense of life, efficiency and recognition from the fitness studio and the operating table. Experiments on genetic methods of selection are carried out under the microscope. The struggle against wrinkled skin, thin legs and flabby bellies is becoming more intensive and successful. The more time a person devotes to his body, the more possibilities he has to perfect it. The human hand seems to have a tight grip on evolution.

Beckermann's parents met in Vienna after the Holocaust. Tracing the migratory paths of her family before World War II, Beckerman returns to the European Jewish communities which inspired her childhood stories.

Walter Harrer, an engineer, is on the night shift and returns home in the morning to find his wife lying unsconscious in the garden. She is sent to hospital were a loss of memory is observed. Dr. Bogner, a young psychiatrist, is interested in the case and tries to help Mercedes. He talks to her husband, her former lover and her friends to see if he can get some clue as to why she can't remember who she is. She confesses that she killed Lona Logan, her rival. But Dr. Bogner isn't sure that she's telling the truth. Did she really do it or is it pure fantasy?

Baron Childerich III of Bartenbruch considers himself to be a descendant of the Merovingian dynasty and he has drawn up a chart of marriages and adoptions which show that he is his own father, grandfather, father-in-law, and son-in-law. He aims at achieving the "total family" based on one man. He persuades his french relative, Pippin, to help him. But the latter lets him down and breaks up the family... Among those who belong to the (surrounding) world of the Baron are Dr. Döblinger, a writer, who has formed a band of muggers and Professor Horn, a psychiatrist, who quiets his patients by leading them on nose rings and beating them up... Family satire with numerous personal and literary allusions based on the novel of the Austrian writer, Heimito von Doderer.

The film jumps between the 40s and the 70s in Germany. Fateful and foreshadowing it highlights the entanglement of the economic system with the activities of the Nazi party, the Holocaust and the attempts to come to terms with the stories of the past. A spy thriller that tries to be everything at once.

In this end-of-the-life scenario, which is designed as an expressive silent film with subtitles, a group of adolescents and scattered loners move through a destroyed landscape. One of the leaders is poisoned by his girlfriend, who now takes his place and demonstrates her power to a newcomer. However, he in turn passes the test of courage, puts himself in the place of the head of the group and leads the ever-growing community into an uncertain future.