Events

Joan D'Arc of Mongolia

When:
Thursday, December 4, 2003, 7:00pm - 7:00pm
Description:
In this tri-lingual epic, seven western women travel in the Trans-Siberian Railroad and are kidnaped by a tribe of Mongolian female warriors. As fantastic as it sounds, this tale is as grounded in historical and ethnographical research as it is in Ottinger's fictions of transformation, metamorphosis and the problem of dealing with otherness. "The whole film is a twin structure, cut through by doubles, repetitions, similarities and endless reflections. The images have a crease, established by the stories ... In this way the Mongolian world casts a reflecting light on western customs and habits and cinema recommends itself as the instrument of investigation and the agent of old and new myths." -Frieda Grafe / SÙddeutsche Zeitung Nr. 76. (Ottinger, 1989, 35mm print, 189 minutes) Based in Berlin, Ulrike Ottinger gained notoriety in the mid 1970s as a fiercely independent and original experimental filmmakers. Her later features include Freak Orlando, Madame X and Joan D'Arc of Mongolia. In recent years, she has turned to more documentary based practices as in Taiga, a film about the nomads populating the rolling hills and valleys of the Mongolian steppes. In conjunction with The Renaissance Society exhibition "Ulrike Ottinger - South East Passage: A Journey to New Blank Spots on the Map of Europe."
Co-sponsored by The Renaissance Society