Film Screening
"Exile Shanghai" by Ulrike Ottinger

GOETHE FILMS: Ulrike Ottinger in Asia

Tue, 03/06/2018
6:30 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox Toronto

Series co-presented by Inside Out, MUFF Society & Reel Asian Film Festival

Ulrike Ottinger, the grande dame of German avant-garde film and “nomad filmmaker”, has worked in Asia numerous times in her five-decade career. Combining fact and fiction, Ottinger’s films follow her adventurous curiosity and create a unique poetic imagery. The three films JOHANNA D’ARC OF MONGOLIA (1989), EXILE SHANGHAI (1997) and UNDER SNOW (2011) presented by the Goethe-Institut follow women in Mongolia, exiles in Shanghai, and Kabuki artists in Japan.
 
Exile Shanghai (Exil Shanghai, Germany/Israel 1997, 275 min), documentary written and directed by Ulrike Ottinger
 
Premiere: Berlinale 1997 International Forum of New Cinema
 
Festivals 1997: Munich, New York, Toronto
 
Six life stories of German, Austrian and Russian Jews intersect in exile in Shanghai. The documentary traces their lives through narratives, photographs, documents and new images of one of Asia's biggest metropolises. With their numerous contradictory conflicting histories and populations, the documentary’s episodes converge to shape a startling new account of a historic exile.

“Fascinating and rich with dry humour, EXILE SHANGHAI is an extraordinary cultural odyssey that affectionately conjures up the lost Jewish world of Shanghai, the most fabulous city of the Far East.” (Berlinale)
 
Ulrike Ottinger (born 1942 in Constance) studied art in Munich from 1959-1961. She lived in Paris from 1962, working as a freelance artist and photographer. She has been living in Berlin since 1973 and is a member of the Academy of Arts and the European Film Academy in Berlin. Ottinger has been a unique and provocative voice in German cinema since her debut in the early 1970s. To date, she has directed 24 films, including feature-length fictions and experimental documentaries. Her films are held up for their radicality, not only of narrative but also of their treatment of sexuality and gender. Ottinger writes her own scripts, frequently operates the camera and even designs the often elaborate sets and lavish costumes showcased in her films. Ottinger has worked in photography throughout her career as an artist. Her other “Asian” films include “China. The Arts – The People” (1985), “Taiga” (1991/1992), “Seoul Women Happiness” (2008) and “The Korean Wedding Chest” (2008). In 2011, Ottinger’s creative output was celebrated in two major solo exhibitions and retrospectives of her films; she also received the Hannah Höch and the Berlinale Special Teddy Queer Film Award 2012.
She is currently working on her next film "Paris Calligrammes", slated for 2018.

Film co-presented by the Toronto Jewish Film Society & Toronto Jewish Film Foundation

 





All GOETHE FILMS are open to audience 18+
 
Part of the Goethe-Institut’s focus on German Film

03/01 | 6:30pm | "Under Snow" by Ulrike Ottinger
03/01 | 9:00pm | "Ulrike Ottinger: Nomad from the Lake" by Brigitte Kramer
03/08 | 6:30pm | "Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia"  by Ulrike Ottinger