Resurrected after a long slumber, the Blood Countess and her faithful servant prowl fin-de-siècle Vienna in search of fresh victims to feed their appetites. A motley cast of characters–the Countess’ vegetarian nephew, his psychotherapist, a team of vampirologists, and the police–pursues them as the women seek a long-lost book whose secrets threaten to upend the vampire order.
Based on the sixteenth-century legend of the Hungarian noblewoman Erzsébet Báthory, The Blood Countess is a baroque fantasia that transplants its immortal antiheroine to Vienna. By equal turns comedic and macabre, this is a gloriously gothic treat with the inimitable Isabelle Huppert in full bloodthirsty splendor.
Ulrike Ottinger is among the most important figures in postwar German cinema. A director, photographer, and visual artist, she has been active as a filmmaker since the late 1960s when she emerged within the New German Cinema movement. Known for her experimental approach to both fiction and documentary, she received Camerimage’s 2022 Award for Avant-Garde Achievements in Film. Her work has been shown at the Venice Biennale and Documenta, with solo exhibitions at Witte de With, David Zwirner, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. She has also been the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, the Cinémathèque Française, and the Centre Pompidou.
