“Looking Back to the Present” – film program 6
With Ulrike Ottinger (director) and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art)
 

Filmmaker and artist Ulrike Ottinger is a passionate collector and archivist. In four short films, she weaves together pieces of her own work with new images to create extraordinary cinematic archives.

‘Berlinfieber – Wolf Vostell’ (Berlin Fever)
BRD 1973, directed by Ulrike Ottinger, 12 min, OmeU
 

In 1973, the artist Wolf Vostell took part in the “Aktionen der Avantgarde” (Avant-Garde Happenings) in West Berlin and organized the “Auto-Fieber” installation and the “Berlinfieber” happening. Ulrike Ottinger documents both in her second filmic work.
 

‘Aloha’
G 2016, directed by Ulrike Ottinger, 25 min, OmeU
 

For her homage to the director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Ulrike Ottinger creates an atmospheric collage of photographs, music and film clips, drawing on her own work and the archive of his 1931 film ‘Tabu’.
 

‘Usinimage’
BRD 1987, directed by Ulrike Ottinger, 10 min, OmeU
 

For her cinematic salute from Berlin to France, Ulrike Ottinger has a group of young girls in the French national colors walk across a bridge before making a collage of industrial landscapes in West Berlin using images from her Berlin trilogy.
 

‘Still Moving’
G 2009, directed by Ulrike Ottinger, 29 min, OmeU
 

For the Live Film! Jack Smith! festival in 2009, Ulrike Ottinger composed a special cinematic cycle made up of dances, artifacts, photographs, archive material and songs, thus honoring the avant-garde artist with a film essay that is both playful and wild.