In Reference
The screen as hub – the In Reference series seeks lines of connection and sets parentheses and footnotes in the festival program. Local film creation is interconnected with itself and with international positions.
Paris Calligrammes, Ulrike Ottinger in front of Allen Ginsberg, Paris 1965 © Ulrike Ottinger
Premiere tour: Ulrike Ottinger
Within the framework of a joint tour together with the Austrian Film Museum and Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz, the Diagonale’21 will premiere Ulrike Ottinger’s Paris Calligrammes (DE/FR 2019) in Graz. Ottinger, who was honored at the Berlinale 2020 for her life work, will be present at the screenings in Linz, Vienna, and Graz. The Festival of Austrian Film is showing the cinematic “Figurengedicht” (calligram), which had its world premiere in Berlin in 2020, as an extension of its historical special Sehnsucht 20/21 – City and Desire, as part of its festival series In Reference. An in-depth discussion with Ulrike Ottinger will take place following the screening in Graz (Diagonale im Dialog).
Premiere tour dates: Paris Calligrammes
Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz
——— Friday, June 4, 2021
Austrian Film Museum, Vienna
——— Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Diagonale – Festival of Austrian Film, Graz
——— Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Paris Calligrammes, Dieu De Guerre, 1967 © Ulrike Ottinger
Ulrike Ottinger, who as a young painter lived in Paris in the 1960s, interweaves her personal memories of bohemian Paris with the serious social, political, and cultural upheavals of that time “into a scintillating self-portrait” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). Like in Prater (Diagonale’08), in which she delved into the fascination and cultural history of the eponymous Viennese amusement park, in Paris Calligrammes, the filmmaker once again creates a “topography of thoughts” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), telling of an immersed Paris that speaks of the vibrancy of life and also the fragility of all cultural and political achievements.
At the Festival of Austrian Film, Paris Calligrammes will be shown in reference to the historical special planned for the Diagonale’20: Sehnsucht 20/21 – City and Desire revolves around the concepts of city and desire and is a joint program by the Diagonale, Filmarchiv Austria, the Austrian Film Museum, and, the ORF Archive.