Chicago Filmmakers (map) | Friday May 23, 2025 | 7:00PM

The first of Ulrike Ottinger’s Berlin Trilogy stars Tabea Blumenschein, Ottinger’s then-partner and frequent collaborator, as an enigmatic, unnamed woman who buys a ticket to Berlin with the purpose of drinking her way into oblivion. Downing cognac after cognac in eye-popping costumes (designed by Blumenschein herself), she passes through a carnivalesque Berlin populated by rockers, punks, writers, artists, taxi drivers, and fellow drunks. Along the way, she encounters a Greek chorus of three middle-aged women who spout statistics about the detrimental effects of alcoholism on women and society and real-life figures like Eddie Constantine and Nina Hagen. A study in glamour, self-destruction, and aimlessness, TICKET OF NO RETURN is distinguished by Ottinger’s stunning use of color and composition and features performances from some of the New German Cinema’s cult stars. In German with English subtitles.

Presented in collaboration with the Goethe-Institute Chicago as part of the Berlin Nights series.

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