»No to Waldheim, no to Waldheim!« chants a crowd of people in the centre of Vienna in 1986. Ruth Beckermann was one of the activists who wanted to prevent former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim from being elected President of Austria. Armed with camera and microphone, she endeavoured to enter the depths of the Austrian soul. More than 30 years on, she uses her own pictures and extensive archive material to analyse this turning point in post-war history: the collapse of the lie that Austria was Nazi Germany’s first victim. Waldheim’s Waltz demonstrates the mechanisms of rabble-rousing – then and now.

»In Waldheim’s Waltz, I work exclusively with archive material which I look at and analyse today. […] I think you can talk much better about the present day based on a film that remains historical than with a film that interviews the protagonists of that time who indulge in their memories as old men. I consciously say ›men‹ because it’s a film in which only men appear. That’s another thing that would be different today. The protagonists are all fathers and sons. […]
It was not my intention at all for Waldheim’s Waltz to gain such political relevance from an Austrian or an international perspective. I’d prefer it if the political situation were a different one. But in the light of fake news, I see this film as a manifestation of the fact that such documentaries [….] must be shown in cinemas in order to offer people a place where they can come together and discuss what’s going on today. Analytical films have their relevance. Today perhaps more than in the last few decades.«
– Ruth Beckermann

Awards for ›The Waldheim Waltz‹
Glashütte Documentary Award – Berlinale 2018