Lightdox Welcomes Ulrike Ottinger’s new documentary Paris Calligrammes

We are proudly announcing our new acquisition, Ulrike Ottinger’s latest film Paris Calligrammes, that premiered at the 70th edition of Berlin International Film Festival. Caliodoscopic autobiographical documentary essay Paris Calligrammes was presented at Berlinale Special, known as festival’s most multifaceted section curated by the Artistic Director of Berlinale Carlo Chatrian.

The screening of the film was preceded by an award ceremony at which Ulrike Ottinger was honored with Berlinale Camera, honoring her work and contribution to film. In this manner, every year since 1986, festival pays tribute to individuals and institutions who have made a special contribution to filmmaking and with whom the festival has a special bond.

In a rich torrent of archival audio and visuals, paired with extracts from her own artworks and films, Ulrike Ottinger resurrects the old Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Latin Quarter, with their literary cafés and jazz clubs, and revisits encounters with Jewish exiles, life with her artistic community, the worldviews of Parisian ethnologists and philosophers, the political upheavals of the Algerian War and May 1968, and the legacy of the colonial era.

Described as “… an extraordinary sort of aesthetico-political nonfiction Bildungsroman. (…) a confectionary wonder and frank observation”, by The New Yorker, Paris Calligrammes is produced by Berlin based zero one film in coproduction with Idéale Audience France, INA and ZDF / 3Sat, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, FFA Filmförderungsanstalt, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, DFFF and Center National du Cinéma.

German photographer, filmmaker and painter, Ulrike Ottinger has been a unique and provocative voice in German cinema since her debut in the early 70s. Over the past 40 years, she has directed 26 films, including feature length fiction and experimental documentaries.