Ein kämpferisches Leben – Ruth Mayenburg

Two highly political television programmes.

Firstly, the portrait of two teenagers for the Prisma programme. Uli, the Adventist, and Hardy, the nerd, both attend year 7 at the Stubenbastei grammar school in Vienna. Uli left home at 15, lives with an older man and admires Hitler for his ‘idealism’. Hardy, on the other hand, finds nothing fascinating about it and considers the Führer principle to be dangerous.

In the following series, Witnesses of Our Time, Ruth Mayenburg - once a leading communist, now ‘a critical leftist without a party’ - looks back on her eventful life. This energetic woman gives a captivating account of her anti-fascist resistance, the horrors of Stalinism and her profound socialisation in Red Vienna: ‘I became a political person shortly before 12 February 1934.’ (Michael Omasta)

Thu 20 Feb: With an introduction by Michael Omasta

Directed by: Bernhard Frankfurter, Werner Swossil
Country: A
Year: 1974
Written by: Bernhard Frankfurter, Werner Swossil
Cinematography: Xaver Schwarzenberger
Format: DCP, colour
Version: German original version
Length: 55 min

PREFILM: Everyday scenes of Uli and Hardy
Director: Bernhard Frankfurter
Country: A
Year: 1976
Written by: Bernhard Frankfurter
Camera: Franz Gießauf
Format: DCP, colour
Version: German original version
Length: 24 min