Homemad(e)

Marc-Aurel-Strasse, Vienna: the last surviving Jewish textile merchant in what in former days was the textile district, the Iranian hotel proprietor and the Café Salzgries with its regulars… From Summer 1999 until Spring 2000, Ruth Beckermann undertook a series of small journeys on and around her own doorstep and investigated her locality with the help of a film camera. ‘There’s too much to show everything, and after all, anyone can imagine what a street in the oldest part of Vienna looks like. What interests me are the people, debating and gesticulating, machinating and speculating, or just simply perambulating past.’ The passing of the year is marked not only by the changes of seasons, but also by a change of government. One in three Austrians voted for Jörg Haider of the extreme right-wing Freedom Party. The film shows how the political turmoil is reflected in the coffee house, which constitutes, to quote Alfred Polgar, ‘a world-view. A view whose furthermost essence is to avoid viewing the world. After all, what is there to see there?’