16/09/2022
ULRIKE OTTINGER AT 80
Since the 1960’s Ulrike Ottinger has produced work as painter, photographer, theatre director and most famously as film director, making imaginative and daring feature films and ambitious, ethnographically inspired documentaries, defying genre rules, questioning gender roles and pursuing her curiosity in other cultures. She has provoked us, amused us and treated us to stunning images, whether of the iconic characters she invented or of the far away locations she has visited. With a long-term interest in q***r subcultures, she has with subtlety subverted the 'straight gaze' as a defining feature running through her oeuvre. She encourages us to look differently.
To celebrate her 80th birthday in June and to mark the handing over of a new book edited by Angela McRobbie, 'Ulrike Ottinger: Film, Art and the Ethnographic Imagination' to the publisher (Berghahn), the Goethe-Institut London is showing two of Ulrike Ottinger’s films. Her 1979 New Wave-influenced Berlin odyssey TICKET OF NO RETURN will be screening in the cinema on Wed 28 Sep. Audiences beyond London will be able to watch her autobiographical essay film PARIS CALLIGRAMMES (2020) on the streaming platform Goethe on Demand from Thur 29 Sep until Sat 8 Oct (N.B. in the UK only). Complementing the screenings, on Mon 3 Oct Ulrike Ottinger will talk about her work and career in an online conversation, hosted by film theorist Mandy Merck and cultural theorist Angela McRobbie, editor of the forthcoming book.
TICKET OF NO RETURN (Bildnis einer Trinkerin) (1979)
Goethe-Institut Cinema, Wed 28 Sep 19:00
This first part of Ottinger’s Berlin trilogy follows the extravagant She (Tabea Blumenschein) on her odyssey through 1970’s West Berlin. Style and artifice meet social realism, wit and satire combine as She stumbles through the city’s subculture, intending to drink herself into oblivion.
With an Introduction by Angela McRobbie.
https://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/ver.cfm?event_id=23807618
PARIS CALLIGRAMMES (2020)
ONLINE, Thur 29 Sep 19:00 – Sat 8 Oct 19:00
In this autobiographical essay film, Ulrike Ottinger looks back to her time in the French capital, where she came of age, and to her explorations of her own artistic growth, fuelled by bookstores, jazz clubs, workshops and cafés.
https://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/ver.cfm?event_id=23807642
Ulrike Ottinger in Conversation
ONLINE, Mon 3 Oct 19:00
Taking her most recent film, the autobiographical PARIS CALLIGRAMMES, as point of departure Ulrike Ottinger will be talking about her career, influences and interests with film theorist Mandy Merck and cultural theorist Angela McRobbie, editor of a forthcoming book on Ottinger.
https://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/ver.cfm?event_id=24091724
