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The Beautiful Woman Sleeping

Director: Ulrike Ottinger

Writers: Ulrike Ottinger, Elfriede Jelinek

It is with great pleasure we feature the announced plans for a new film from German auteur Ulrike Ottinger, a provocative artist perhaps best remembered for 1981’s Freak Orlando, starring Magdalena Montezuma and Delphine Seyrig, an exemplification of her own surrealist style. Ottinger is also an applauded documentarian, her last project being 2011’s Under Snow. But it’s been well over a decade since we’ve seen Ottinger tackle a fictional narrative, the last being 2004’s Twelve Chairs. Around 2007/2008, an announcement was made for Ottinger to make a feminist vampire film about the infamous historical figure Countess Bathory, set to star Tilda Swinton and Isabelle Huppert. The project never got off the ground (and Julie Delpy went ahead with her own recuperation, The Countess). However, in early 2015, Amour Fou Films announced two projects with writer Elfriede Jelinek (author...

Chicago – The final week of the 12th Annual EU Film Festival at the Siskel Film Center perfectly illustrates the main strength of this festival - amazing diversity. From what we had time to see of the final stretch of films, the four highlights couldn’t be more diverse, featuring movies from four different countries with four completely different tones and styles.

The highlights of the first three weeks of EU included a coming-of-age drama from Ireland (“Kisses”), a sexy romantic comedy from France (“The Girl From Monaco”), an amazing Danish drama (“Worlds Apart”), and a very interesting horror film from Belgium (“Left Bank”). Read more here, here, and here)

The final week takes us back to two of those countries - Belgium and France - and also features a fascinating Finnish shocker before closing with a gentle and sweet film from Sweden. Overall, it’s been a fantastic festival for...