Ulrike Ottinger is known worldwide as an avant-garde artist and an unconventional filmmaker. In a rich torrent of archival audio and visuals, paired with extracts from her own artworks and films, Ottinger resurrects the old Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Latin Quarter, with their literary cafés and jazz clubs, and revisits encounters with Jewish exiles and the worldviews of Parisian ethnologists and philosophers. Ottinger found them at Librairie Calligrammes, a German-language used bookstore run by the Jewish exiled Fritz Picard. The film premiered at the Berlinale 2020 and then was presented at the Trieste FF in 2021 in the ‘Art & Sound’ section.
“The film combines my personal memories of the 1960s with a portrait of the city and a social cartography of the age. Like Guillaume Apollinaire’s poetry collection Calligrammes: Poèmes de la paix et de la guerre, I have given it the form of a filmic ‘calligram’ in which the words and images, complemented by language, sound, and music, form a mosaic that emerges from the vivacity of those exciting years while speaking to the fragility of all cultural and political achievements.” (U. Ottinger)
Sceneggiatura / Screenplay: Ulrike Ottinger
Fotografia / Photography: Ulrike Ottinger
Montaggio / Editing: Anette Fleming
Suono / Sound: Timothée Alazraki, Detlef Schitto
Scenografia / Art Director: Aurore Vullierme
Produzione / Produced by: Zero One film
Coproduzione / Co-produced by: Idéale Audience, INA, ZDF/3Sat
Con il sostegno di / Supported by: BKM, FFA, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, DFFF, CNC
Distribuzione internazionale / World Sales: Lightdox
Ulrike Ottinger
Filmmaker and photographer, Ulrike Ottinger was born in 1942 in Konstanz, Germany. Her films have run at the most important international film festivals and tribute has been shown in many retrospective shows. As a photographer Ottinger presented her works at La Biennale di Venezia and the Berlin Biennale, among others. At the latest Berlinale, she received the honorary career award ‘Berlinale Kamera’.
Selected filmography
1973 Laokoon & Söhne. Die Verwandlungsgeschichte der Esmeralda del Rio 16mm 1984 Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse 1985 China. Die Künste – der Alltag; Premi / Awards: Premio dei critici cinematografici tedeschi / German Film Critics Award 1989 Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia; Premi / Awards: London FF – Film dell’anno / Outstanding Film of the Year 1992 Taiga 1997 Exil Shanghai 16mm 2007 Prater; Premi / Awards: Premio dei critici cinematografici tedeschi / German Film Critics Award 2016 Chamissos Schatten; Premi / Awards: Premio dei critici cinematografici tedeschi / German Film Critics Award 2020 Paris Calligrammes