According to Director Ulrike Ottinger's website, Tilda Swinton (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Chronicles of Narnia) will be the latest actress to star as the psychotic (yet lovely) Countess Elizabeth (Erzsebeth) Bathory in The Blood Countess (Die Blutgrafin). She'll star alongside Isabelle Huppert, Udo Kier (Keyhole, Suspiria), Sophie Rois, Udo Samel, Irm Hermann, and Nicholas Ofczarek.
Elisabeth Bathory was a Hungarian countess whose legendary exploits as a serial murderer of young women in the 16th century have become a prominent figure in popular culture. Often considered the "female Dracula" for her practice of bathing in the blood of the young women she killed to preserve her youth, her story is set to hit the big screen again.
"Impatiently awaiting the arrival of her devoted maid Hermine, the countess Erzsébeth Báthory, also known as La Comtesse Sanglante, a tigress in human disguise, ascends into the open daylight. At breathtaking speed, the two women race through a Vienna of ghoulish beauty. This is a cracked journey to the roots of a myth that has lost nothing of its appeal: to the Vampyre Empire!"
Their entourage: Báthorys nephew Bubi, a vegetarian vampire who refuses to follow family traditions, his therapist, two wacky vampirologists, some members of the duelling fraternity "Vampiria", an all-female music ensemble, and many more.
"Wiener Blut", Viennese blood is shed by the buckets while the hearts of the present Habsburgians and Viennese beat high. Naturally, the showdown takes place at Vienna´s "Prater" - during a midnight supper on that fair´s famous Ferris wheel."
The inclusion of "whacky vampirologists" makes one wonder if the film will take a more comedic slant, or simply be some crazy experimental film.
Udo Kier is currently in Winnipeg filming Guy Maddin's latest ambitious feature film/webisode project titled Keyhole. Later this month he's off to Sweden to work on Melancholia, a film written and directed by Lars von Trier. The film deals with a variety of people trying to cope with the death of the planet. Plot details are being kept extremely quiet. Trier stated that there would be "no more happy endings! Also starring are Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Stellan Skarsgård and John Hurt.
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Source: UlrikeOttinger.com
1 comment:
The film also features the new spanish (or Italian) actress Eva Basteiro-Bertoli, the role of "Anna Nádasdy és Báthory, eldest daughter of the Countess.
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