Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires Festivales de Buenos Aires

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:

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.

Schedule for this film

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Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires