Ulrike Ottinger said her vampire film “The Blood Countess” (“Die Blutgräfin”), starring Isabelle Huppert, was cut by as much as 20 minutes against her wishes. She made the comments at a German cinema event during the Tokyo International Film Festival, which is presenting a retrospective of her work.
Huppert plays a vampire countess who returns in present-day Vienna. Lars Eidinger and Burgtheater actor Birgit Minichmayr also star. The film had its world premiere at the Berlinale in February.
Ottinger said her preferred cut was 15 to 20 minutes longer. She initially shortened the film under pressure, but felt that the changes damaged its rhythm. She subsequently reworked the entire film to restore its balance at the shorter length.
“From my point of view, it’s perfect now, but it was a big job to rework it again,” Ottinger said.
The filmmaker described “The Blood Countess” as the most expensive film she has made. She had sought 40 shooting days but was given 30, while the production involved more than 100 crew members. Ottinger said she would have preferred a smaller team and additional time on set.
She also criticized what she called excessive and bureaucratic safety requirements, saying they have significantly increased production costs. When she produced her own films, she said, she could make them to a high standard for between €2.5 million and €3 million. Meeting current requirements, she added, now requires at least €7 million to €8 million, which is why she no longer produces her own films.
Ottinger said all of the principal cast members were her choices. Huppert had remained attached to the project for 20 years, while Eidinger was enthusiastic about joining it. The director said she looks for actors capable of playing different kinds of roles.
Vienna provided much of the film’s inspiration, including the Narrenturm, an underground lake, Habsburg burial sites and the dynasty’s tradition of triple burial. Ottinger said these elements led her toward the vampire genre. German cinema professor Shibuya Tetsuya noted that the film also features a vegetarian vampire.
Ottinger, who began her career in the visual arts, described herself as an outsider in German cinema. She said her films are driven by images rather than psychological drama.
The Tokyo retrospective also features “Ticket of No Return,” the first film in Ottinger’s Berlin Trilogy, and “Under Snow,” her 2011 film shot in Niigata’s snow country and on Sado Island.
At the same event, Barbara Wurm, the Austrian head of the Berlinale’s Forum section, discussed Germany’s current film-funding system. Since Jan. 1, 2025, production support from the Federal Film Board, or FFA, has been allocated automatically according to a film’s admissions and festival results, replacing the board’s jury-based selection for that support.
Wurm said producers can receive funding for a subsequent project only if an earlier film played at designated festivals or reached a specified audience threshold, and if they provide audience projections. She argued that the system directs substantial funding toward a limited number of films and disadvantages smaller productions and documentaries.
The Berlinale’s Forum, which is independently curated by the Arsenal film institute, is not included on the FFA’s current festival reference list. Wurm said this means films shown in the section do not qualify for that funding mechanism.
Government film funding has also changed sharply. Culture minister Wolfram Weimer nearly doubled economic film funding to €250 million for 2026, though that money has already been allocated. A draft 2027 budget proposes approximately €200 million, subject to parliamentary approval, while jury-based cultural film funding continues separately.
Wurm said filmmakers’ passports matter less than whether they work primarily with a German production company. She added that film schools have become sufficiently international that it is no longer possible to describe their students as predominantly German.
Sources: Variety.