AMERICAN PASSAGES

Initially, there's that moment of happiness: an African-American celebrating in Harlem cheers "We're free!" as if Barack Obama's victory meant the ultimate end of slavery. 

AMERICAN PASSAGES is an associative journey through the United States: a disillusioned Iraq veteran, gay adoptive fathers, black judges, white party animals and a pimp at a casino table in Las Vegas. 

The extreme contrasts of black and white, rich and poor, winners and losers are often as surprising as the meaning of the constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness in these times of crisis.

An epic panorama of America.




DVCam/35mm - 121’ – 1:1,85
Dolby Digital - OV english
Subtitles: german, french

A film by Ruth Beckermann
Director of photography Antoine Parouty, Lisa Rinzler
Sound Atanas Tcholakov, Matthew Dennis
Editing Dieter Pichler
with Michael Vogt, Bobbie Martin, Sheila Jackson-Johnson, james & marie & grace stack, sheila skemp, michele mitchell, lynetta lyon, james collette III, john parkerson, brian whitfield, linda & james waltman, ruth haefliger, phil mcentee, constance slaughter-harvey, tomie green, johnnie moore, charles & robert & alison & asher hahn-lowry, juan delgado soto, david epstein, michael light, paolo soleri, joseph arpaio, mary justice, nancy herr, jaki baskow, larry hart, caroline swindle, tony heart, rich & marie little, frank randall, genevieve dew, jesse garon, patricia larsen, andreas mitisek, eric & phil, jerry goldberg
Executive producer Ursula Wolschlager

World premiere 31.3.2011, Paris, CINÉMA DU RÉEL
Festivals Buenos Aires, BAFICI 2012
VIENNALE - Vienna International Film Festival
DIAGONALE - Festival of Austrian Film, Graz/Austria 2012
Montréal - RIDM Rencontre Int. du Film Documentaire 2011
 

Interviews interrupt the beautiful, fluid movements of travel that enable a kind of mapping of different generic and largely public and/or anonymous places, such as diners, drive-ins, cemeteries, churches, supermarkets, memorials, casinos and prisons.
Alexandra Seibel, kolik film

A great film with a brilliant ending: a singer performs Bertolt Brecht und Kurt Weill’s “Alabama Song” at an audition in a hair salon. The setting is Las Vegas, a Mahagonny of the modern age. The rise and fall of the American Dream is heartbreakingly reflected in the ruined of faces of the well-to-do and the gamblers.
‍‍Michael Omasta, Falter

American Passages drifts without orientation in the best sense of the phrase. The individual mosaic pieces, which taken together comprise the film, are open to constant mental rearrangement. Like so many filmmakers, Beckermann’s crossings through this phantasmagorical space (called America) drive her to do her best work.
Rainer Kienböck, Jugend ohne Film

The American Dream is not dead, but rather a kind of eternal construction site. This is one of the insights that spring to mind when watching Ruth Beckermann’s powerful documentary.
Dominik Kamalzadeh, Der Standard