Born in Kitzbühl, Austria in 1972, Ruth Kaaserer grew up in Munich. She studied sculpture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under Michelangelo Pistoletto. In 2001, she set up an exhibit in an abandoned country movie theater in Lower Austria together with Almut Rink. They subsequently released a book entitled Kino ohne Land – No place for a cinema, including texts about alternative cinema. Since 2002 Kaaserer has been traveling regularly to the USA where in 2014 she produced Tough Cookies, her first feature-length documentary film. Her documentary film Gwendolyn (2017) about weight lifter and retired Assyriologist Gwendolyn Leick, was widely screened at festivals and garnered numerous accolades. Kaaserer currently lives and works in Vienna.

Films (Selection)

Awards and Honors (Selection)

We have chosen to honor documentary filmmaker Ruth Kaaserer for the impressive maturity of her work up until now and the steady hand she exhibits in the choice and realization of her stories. In the making of her films, Ruth Kaaserer takes her very own time to listen and to watch. Her finely woven dramaturgy creates living worlds inhabited by protagonists who teach us: Everything is a matter of attitude.

Kaaserer stages scenes in front of the camera with empathy, intelligence and a multi-facetted sensibility. In so doing, she has developed a style that combines documentary modes with a visual vocabulary familiar to us from fiction. The result is nothing less than: especially worth seeing!

JURY: KATRINA DASCHNER, GERALD KERKLETZ, ELISABETH SCHARANG

English translation by Eve Heller