Movies: Ulrike Ottinger

Vienna’s Prater is an amusement park and a desire machine. No mechanical invention, no novel idea or sensational innovation could escape incorporation into the Prater. The diverse story-telling in Ulrike Ottinger’s film “Prater” transforms this place...

A sartorially resplendent woman of few words arrives in Berlin with plans to live out the rest of her days as a drunkard....

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each...

A group of cosmopolitan women passengers aboard the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian Railway are taken prisoner by Ulan Iga, a warrior princess....

FREAK ORLANDO is divided into five more-or-less distinct sections, all featuring "Freak" Orlando, a woman, played by the late Magdalena Montezuma, who appears in various guises, and deformities, throughout....

The Darkhad and Soyon Uriyanghai peoples live in a vast valley in Northern Mongolia, much as their ancestors have for centuries. "Taiga" is the record of a long period spent by the German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger among these people....

Seven Women, Seven Sins (1986) represents a quintessential moment in film history. The women filmmakers invited to direct for the seven sins were amongst the world's most renown: Helke Sander (Gluttony), Bette Gordon (Greed), Maxi Cohen (Anger), Chan...

The notorious pirate ruler Madame X places a print ad, calling on women to escape their boring lives and promising "gold, love and adventure" to all who come aboard her ship, the Orlando. A motley crew including a housewife, diva and artist (played b...

Gérard Courant's "Filmed Diary" of December 14, 2011, produced in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Between December 7 and 15, 2011, Gérard Courant was invited by the Dubai International Film Festival, in the United Arab Emirates. It was an opportunity f...

The final installment in Ulrike Ottinger’s Berlin Trilogy (following TICKET OF NO RETURN and FREAK ORLANDO) casts Delphine Seyrig as the nefarious Fritz Lang supervillain Dr. Mabuse, here the head of a powerful media empire that seeks to create headl...

The Blood Countess and her maid take us on a wild hunt for blood and secrets from times gone by. On their adventurous journey, they desperately search for the precious lifeblood while also uncovering the dark history of their ancestors. But suddenly ...

Ulrike Ottinger weaves her personal memories of Parisian bohemianism and the serious social, political and cultural upheavals of the time into a cinematic “figure poem.”...

Countdown follows a chronological sequence. The movie was shot in Berlin and environs over a ten-day period leading up to the unification of the currencies on July 1, 1990. The film thus ends on the date marking “the first stage of German reunificati...

...Her son-in-law, Ippolit Matwejewitch Worobjaninow, is a former nobleman and a dandy who is currently wasting away as a small town magistrate in charge of civil marriages. He eagerly takes up the quest to find the treasure. Meanwhile, over the year...

Once upon a time there was a country known by the name of Laura Molloy. Laura Molloy was the name of this country. Only women lived in Laura MolloyEsmeralda del Rio was a woman. One day Esmeralda del Rio had the idea to undergo a series of transforma...

China marks the beginning of the extensive Asian theme in Ottinger’s filmography and is her first travelogue. Her observant eye is interested in anything from Sichuan opera and the Beijing Film Studio to the production of candy and sounds of bicycle ...

Right at the heart of the debates on the discrimination of women in the film industry, this documentary raises questions, while offering a voice to women and their cinema. Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Mira Nair, Margarethe Von Trotta, Ulrike Ott...

In fall 2007 the Women's Film Festival Seoul issued a call that did not promise, like the pirate queen Madame X, "gold, love, and adventure," but something as tempting as the opportunity to film a 15-minute short in Korea, which, assembled as one of ...

Tabu, a mythical tale shot in Tahiti, is yet another key to Ottinger’s cinema. Aloha is a dedication to Murnau, as well as Gauguin, Matisse and her other predecessors whose hearts and eyes had been enchanted by foreign cultures. By juxtaposing footag...

Ulrike Ottinger is an exceptional filmmaker and artist. Her cinematic universe has influenced entire generations. As a young woman, she brought the international art world to the sleepy town of Konstanz. It all began on the shores of Lake Constance w...