WAX & GOLD at Österreichisches Filmmuseum
- The file
- The practical details Claire checked before this went into the index.
- When
- 5 October 2026
- Where
- Augustinerstraße 1 (Albertina building), 1010 Wien
- Price
- check website
- Documentary
- Essay film
- German/English/Amharic
- 1st district
WAX & GOLD is a film about what images hide and what they reveal. Ruth Beckermann, one of Austria's most decorated documentary filmmakers, takes us to the Hilton Hotel in Addis Ababa—built by Emperor Haile Selassie as a monument to African modernization—and uses it as a lens to examine Ethiopia's layered history. Archive footage, lobby conversations, and Beckermann's own reflections as a European woman in Africa layer and contradict each other, like "liquified wax that surrounds hard gold," as the film puts it.
The title itself is an Ethiopian literary technique: saying the opposite of what you mean. Beckermann applies this metaphor to the slipperiness of historical truth, the weight of colonial legacy, and the gap between image and reality. The film asks more questions than it answers—which is exactly the point.
Beckermann's previous work Waldheims Walzer won the Berlinale Documentary Award and was Austria's Oscar entry. WAX & GOLD premiered as a Berlinale Special in February 2026 to strong reviews. The Filmmuseum's Unsichtbares Kino is an intimate, contemplative space—the kind of setting an essay film like this actually needs.
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- Where
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- Where
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- When
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- Where
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