Paris Calligrammes plot
How can you, fifty years later, make a film from the perspective of the young artist you once were or wanted to be? Artist and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger asks herself this question at the start of Paris Calligrammes, her journey through the cultural Paris of the 1960s. She takes the title of the film from Fritz Picard's legendary bookshop Librairie Calligrammes, where she found an inspiring home base as a twenty-something newcomer to the French capital. With a collage of archive material and fragments from feature films and home movies, Ottinger captures the atmosphere and spirit of a turbulent time.