German filmmaker and photographer Ulrike Ottinger was BOTD in 1942. Born in Konstanz in Nazi Germany to a middle-class family, she grew up in West Germany, and studied painting at the Academy of Arts in Munich. She moved to Paris in 1962 where she worked as a freelance artist, and wrote her first film screenplay in 1966. Returning to West Germany in 1969, she founded and directed the experimental film club “Visuell”. She made her first film Laokoon & Söhne (Laocoon and Sons) in 1972, before moving to Berlin, where she became involved in the New German Cinema. Dispensing with conventional narrative, her work focused on women’s experience, and was notable for strong elements of surrealism and fantasy. Her best known film Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia (Joan of Arc of Mongolia), starring Delphine Seyrig, screened in competition at the 1989 Berlinale. She also made a number of documentaries, based on her travels in China, Mongolia and South East Asia and collaborated on theatre productions with Elfriede Jelinek. Openly lesbian since forever, she lives and work in Berlin. Her most recent film, Die Blutgräfin (Blood Countess), a queer vampire comedy based on the life of Elizabeth Báthory starring Isabelle Huppert, was released in 2026.