“Thanks to Beckermann’s smart narration—clear, impassioned, but never polemical—and the astute way she allows exceptional footage to play out to its full extent, The Waldheim Waltz has a sense of urgency made more pressing given political developments not just in Austria but Poland and Hungary as well.” (Variety)

In this haunting, unnerving, and timely documentary, the formidable documentarian Ruth Beckermann (East of War) presents the controversial 1986 presidential campaign of Austrian politician Kurt Waldheim. The former UN Secretary General, who claimed to have been a simple soldier during WWII, saw his candidacy plummet into bedlam when a series of revelations regarding his Nazi past appeared. Beckermann meticulously documents how Waldheim’s wartime experience was uncovered and focuses carefully on the denial by the Austrian political class and their blindness to the growth of anti-Semitism and nationalism that finally led to his election. Ultimately she asks, “What does it take to make a nation reconsider its self-image?”

SPONSORED BY AJC

Tickets: $11 (members), $16 (nonmembers)