"Deliriously sumptuous and transgressive, Ulrike Ottinger's world can hardly be confused with humdrum reality. Watching her films is like traveling through an undiscovered country of marvels, a journey alternately dazzling, infuriating, hilarious, and rewarding. Mongolian nomads, feral feminists, and Shanghai and Jewish culture rub elbows in the oeuvre of a unique filmmaker who combines an outlaw's spirit and an ethnographer's eye with an artist's sense of wonder" (Leslie Camhi, The Village Voice)
Autumn 2011: Premiere UNTER SCHNEE - Exhibitions at Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein - - Hannah Höch Prize Awarding - Film series at Arsenal
Between September 2011 and January 2011 numerous Ulrike Ottinger-related events are taking place in Berlin. On 7th September the exhibition Floating Food opens in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. On 9th September her new film Under Snow will also have its premiere there. On 25th September Ulrike Ottinger will be awarded the Hannah Höch Prize of the Berlin Senate. On the same day to mark the occasion an exhibition opens at the Neue Berliner Kunstverein which will for the first time show her early paintings. To accompany these events from 18th September 2011 to 22nd January 2012 the Kino Arsenal is showing a selection of her films in a 12 part series accompanied by conversations and introductions. Each of the exhibitions will be accompanied by an artist’s book published by the Walther König Verlag.
In preparation: THE BLOOD COUNTESS
Impatiently awaiting the arrival of her devoted maid Hermine, the countess Erzsébeth Báthory, also known as La Comtesse Sanglante, a tigress in human disguise, ascends into the open daylight.
At breathtaking speed, the two women race through a Vienna of ghoulish beauty. This is a cracked journey to the roots of a myth that has lost nothing of its appeal: to the Vampyre Empire!
Starring Tilda Swinton and Isabelle Huppert!
Award of the German film critique: PRATER
People, monsters, sensations. The beguiling images in Ulrike Ottinger’s Prater transform this mythical Viennese attraction into a cinematic experience. A captivating succession of intention and coincidence, an amusement ride through time and space. An complex film that makes us think and laugh.
Award of the German film critique 2007: best documentary!