Ulrike Ottinger Filmproduction

France, Germany 2020, 129 min
by Ulrike Ottinger

In the tradition of the flanérie she seeks places that were significant for her personally as well as for the 1960s. In Fritz Picard's Librairie Calligrammes, she meets German and French avant-gardists from literature and art. The Cinémathèque Française becomes a special attraction for her. Here she saw films by the Nouvelle Vague, Independents from the USA, from Asian countries, the Soviet republics, from Africa and the Magreb and also film history. The love for cinema had flared up.Paris was not only the meeting point of intellectuals and artists from all over the world, but also went through a difficult political phase of decolonization in the aftermath of the Algerian war. In addition, student protests against the Vietnam War and racial discrimination began in the mid-sixties. Ulrike Ottinger describes how she experienced this period of artistic, political and social awakening.

2016, 720 min
by Ulrike Ottinger

Ulrike Ottinger’s latest film Chamisso’s Shadow brought her to remote regions of the Bering Sea. The wind, waves, and an interest in the people took her to the Kamchatka and Chukchi Peninsulas, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. Here, far in the north, the Eurasian and the North American continent meet, offering the eye spectacular ocean and volcanic landscapes with related ethnicities and cultures that are shaped by a long story of colonial oppression and yet have maintained elements of their indigenous language and their ancient knowledge. The economic and geopolitical interests of the residents collide with those of global politics.Inspired by historical reports of famous explorers such as Alexander von Humboldt, Georg Wilhelm Steller, Reinhold and Georg Forster, and especially Adelbert von Chamisso, Ulrike Ottinger went on a journey. Like her predecessors, she kept her own log and shot impressive footage of the landscape, plants, and animals of the people living there. With her very own artistic-ethnographic gaze she links the historical reports, findings and visual representations with her own personal travel notes and footage. The past and present meet in film, revealing historical and cultural transformations. A tense relationship emerges between then and now, showing how inseparable the two are: like the shadow of the title character in Adelbert von Chamisso’s Peter Schlemihl’s Miraculous Story who first loses his shadow and then chases it across all the continents in his seven-league boots.chapter one: ALASKA UND DIE ALEUTISCHEN INSELNchapter two: TSCHUKOTKA UND WRANGEL-INSELNchapter three: KAMTCHATKA UND DIE BERING-INSEL720min in 3 parts: 195min / 156min / 177min | DCP | DVD | VOP |original German/English/Russian/Ewenian/Chukoto-Kamchatkan version with English or German subtitles available

2008, 82 min
by Ulrike Ottinger

When I opened a Korean email in fall 2007 I didn't imagine that I would soon be opening a well-stocked miracle box, the inspiring contents of which would become a film: THE KOREAN WEDDING CHEST. Even though (or especially because) this carefully packed, filled, and tied-up wooden chest was assembled according to the rules of an honored tradition, it offers a remarkable insight into and overview of modern Korean society. I was inspired to look more closely at the old and new rituals to determine what is old in the new and new in the old. A modern fairytale about the amazing phenome non of new mega cities emerging everywhere and their contradictory societies caught in the balancing act. Bon voyage into the present!

2007, 104 min
by Ulrike Ottinger

The breathtaking images in Ulrike Ottinger’s Prater plunge each and every spectator into their own universe of desires and sensations. The film brings together the cultural history of the oldest amusement park in the world with brilliant insights into the changeability of technological attractions. We are introduced to the people for whom the Prater is a place of amusement, memory, or quite simply the center of life. Vienna’s Prater is a desire-machine. With the latest space travel technologies we can speed toward the moon; in the tunnel of horrors we encounter a full repertoire of monsters from film history. The name "Prater”, from the Latin pratum, means "meadow” and originally referred to the imperial hunting grounds located here. Today it is a hunting ground for everyone’s desires. Take a journey through space and time – at the Prater, everything is possible.