One More Step West Is the Sea: ruth weiss

The life story of Ruth Weiss is a pioneering and intensely artistic one. Growing up as a Jewish girl in Berlin and Vienna and fleeing to the U.S. with her family in 1938 to escape the Nazis, Weiss engaged in creative circles in Chicago and New Orleans. Soon after graduating from High School, she hitchhiked across the States and in the early 1950s emerged as a singular poet in San Francisco.

She was one of the first artists to develop the joint genre of Jazz & Poetry and interacted with greats of the Beat Generation such as Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Bob Kaufman, although as a woman she was usually overshadowed by her more famous male counterparts. It was only when she was in her 70s that she gradually gained the recognition due to her.

She has consistently maintained her unique Bohemian lifestyle well into old age. Still performing on stage at the age of 90, she is the cosmic refugee among the ecstatic memories of counter culture. Beat scholar and award-winning poet Thomas Antonic traces Weiss’s pioneering art and her world without boundaries.

Cast

Herself
Ruth Weiss
Himself
Hal Davis
Himself
Sojun Roshi Mel Weitsman
Himself
Tate Swindell
Himself
Rent Romus
Himself
Doug O’Connor
Himself
Karl Schoen
One More Step West Is the Sea: ruth weiss - Poster 1

One More Step West Is the Sea: ruth weiss

Thomas Antonic

  • Documentary
Production Country / Year
Austria 2021
Language
en., de. OF mit en., de. UT
Format
Digital file, Color, 90min
1.90:1, Stereo

Director & Crew

Thomas Antonic 1

Thomas Antonic

Born in 1980 in Bruck an der Mur/Austria. Studied Literature. Active as a director, writer and instructor.

Filmography

2012 SCHMUTZIGES WASSER, Kurzfilm

2013 THE DEATH OF MR. KRUSOVICE, Kurzfilm

2017 SUITCASE NO. 13, Kurzfilm

2020 LIEBESGRÜßE AUS BELGRAD, Kurzfilmserie

2021 FROM CALIFORNIA WITH LOVE, Kurzfilmserie 2022 ONE MORE STEP WEST IS THE SEA: RUTH WEISS, Dokumentarfilm

Writer
Thomas Antonic
Director of Photography
Thomas Antonic
Editor
Robert Dassanowsky
Thomas Antonic
Sarah Earheart
Sound
Robert Dassanowsky
Producer
Robert Dassanowsky
Anthony Jacobson
Thomas Antonic