Freak Orlando

Ulrike Ottinger is a German artist and director. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. She spent the 1960s painting and doing photography in Paris. In 1973, she founded her own production company in Berlin, where she has been living up until the present. She also made her first documentary in 1975, Laocoon & Sons, and she made her first full-length feature film in 1978, with the surreal Madame X: An Absolute Ruler, which featured a performance by underground icon Tabea Blumenschein from the group Die Tödliche Doris. In the 1980s, she was also involved in set design for stage plays, including for productions by Elfriede Jelinek, whose Farewell was presented again in 2000 on the stage of the Berliner Ensemble. Ottinger's original, interdisciplinary work consists of documentaries, feature films, and experimental films that can often be described as artistic forays into the territory that separates these forms. As opposed to conventional means of expression, Ottinger seeks prescriptions that differ from official arrangements and traditions, especially in Eastern cultures. Since making her eight-hour Taiga, she has consistently challenged viewers, including in terms of the length her films. Being at the same time the director, writer, producer, and cinematographer, her films are absolutely her original works in every sense.