Q&A with Ruth Beckermann on October 11 & 13

Kurt Waldheim was an Austrian diplomat and politician who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1982. In 1986, his nation elected him as president despite a controversy over his previously undisclosed role in the Nazi regime during World War II. Using archival footage, Ruth Beckermann (The Dreamed Ones, Art of the Real 2016) studies how various media reported Waldheim’s accession and, more broadly, the influence of false naïveté and political pressure by those in positions of power. The Waldheim Waltz is an intelligent, timely work of activist filmmaking—one whose questions about collective complicity, memory, and historical responsibility are as important to ask today as they were more than 30 years ago. A Menemsha Films release.

Special thanks to Austrian Cultural Forum New York.