Film Info
Return to Vienna

Film Information

Exhibition Title	Return to Vienna
Original Title	Wien retour
English Title	Return to Vienna
Director	Ruth Beckermann
Country
Year	1983
Format	16 mm
Colour	Color + B&W
Duration	91'

Cast:

Intérpretes / Cast: Franz West

Production:

Dirección / Director: Ruth Beckermann, Josef Aichholzer
Guión / Scriptwriter: Josef Aichholzer, Ruth Beckermann
Fotografía / Cinematography: Tamás Ujlaki, Bernd Neuburger,
Bernhard Watzek, Gerd Broser
Producción / Producer: Josef Aichholzer, Ruth Beckermann

More info:

Days & Times

dates & times ticket

tickets

Synopsis

The first person oral history of Franz West (1909-1985), a journalist and worker rights activist –a communist– in Vienna during the years between wars. With no rush and the typical meanders of an old educated man, West goes through his life in Leopoldstadt, the second district in Vienna, and through it we see the history of Austria in the “short century” (in the words of Eric Hobsbawm). During that period, it went from an Empire to a republic in crisis dominated by fascism and later annexed to the Third Reich, and then occupied by the Allies after the defeat in World War II. “Contrary to today”, says West, “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 me, with black hair and not quite immaculate Greco-Roman nose, were immediately recognized as Jews. All you needed to do was jostle some unfriendly fellow-passengers in the tram, and you were sure to be abused as a Jew.