Ulrike Ottinger

Divided into four sections (Trilogy; Fiction: Ethnographic and Adventure Films; Underground, Fluxus and Symbolism; Documents of Today), this retrospective includes thirteen films spanning three decades of Ottinger’s career, from her first solo feature-length film Madame X - Eine absolute Herrscherin, an extravagant lesbian science fiction adventure, to her latest work Zwölf Stühle (2004), which, according to American critic Laurence A. Rickels “summarises, cites, revises and builds on her earlier film work”. Also included is Taiga (1991-1992), an 8½-hour saga that documents a trip among the nomads in northern Mongolia, a film that has become a fundamental reference point for the cultural use of fantasy, since ‘real life’ is constantly pervaded by reverie.