Vampires have time. Film productions have to pay for it. For Ulrike Ottinger’s “The Blood Countess”, which opens in German cinemas on 29 October 2026, almost three decades separate the initial research in 1998 from the finished film. According to the director, several attempts foundered for lack of money. This is therefore not just a story of perseverance, but also a question of who can afford to persevere for so long.
Isabelle Huppert plays the countess, Birgit Minichmayr her maid Hermine. In present-day Vienna, they search for a book that could threaten their vampiric existence. The familiar genre figure serves a decidedly individual project: as Ottinger explains in an interview with the Austrian Film Institute, she is less interested in predictable scares than in the coexistence of historical and contemporary worlds. Whether this succeeds on screen is a different question from whether it can be financed.
Production design is not an optional extra
The working method alone explains some of the effort involved. In the press kit, Ottinger describes a visual concept developed from photographs, drawings and texts, which she discussed with cinematographer Martin Gschlacht. Costumes, materials and locations are not merely packaging for a plot here. They are part of the film’s conception. Simplifying them may change more than its surface.
Authorship, too, needs to be defined more precisely than by citing two famous names: Ottinger wrote the screenplay; Elfriede Jelinek contributed dialogue elements with a particularly Austrian inflection. Working with a Nobel laureate in literature evidently did not remove the funding obstacles.
One film, several funding models
“The Blood Countess” was made by AMOUR FOU Vienna, AMOUR FOU Luxembourg and Cologne-based Heimatfilm, in co-production with Ulrike Ottinger Filmproduktion. This European structure brings together different sources of finance. It is not proof of boundless freedom, but it was a prerequisite for the project to be made at all.
The Austrian Film Institute lists €914,200 in production funding from its own funds and €2 million from ÖFI+, alongside an ORF commitment of €400,000. These are published figures for funding and financial participation, not final accounts. They do not provide a reliable final total budget.
The distinction between the instruments matters: selective project funding rests on a selection decision. ÖFI+, by contrast, is designed as an automatic incentive for production in Austria, with its basic amount calculated according to eligible expenditure in the country. Public support thus follows not only an artistic judgement, but also an economic rationale tied to the production location. The ÖFI+ website now also carries a notice that new production funding applications are severely restricted because of the budget situation. This film’s financing is therefore not a reliably repeatable formula.
Freedom costs the filmmaker too
Ottinger put in money herself. In the press kit, she explains that sales of her own paintings contributed to the financing. What is striking here is less the romantic notion of personal sacrifice than the prerequisite: not every female filmmaker has a body of visual art whose sales can help fund a film.
Even this contribution did not remove the constraints. In December 2024, Ottinger told the Film Institute that thirty shooting days were planned; she would have liked forty. Instead of extended rehearsals with the cast together, she planned intensive individual discussions with the actors. She also had to revise the screenplay repeatedly for budgetary reasons. Here, money becomes a concrete condition of artistic production: it determines the time available and the narrative scope.
Finished does not mean it has reached its audience
The world premiere took place at the Berlinale on 16 February 2026. Neue Visionen is handling the German theatrical release. The festival and the distributor mark two different steps: public presentation and regular access to paying audiences. Neither initially tells us anything about the size of that audience, nor about the returns to those involved.
How much artistic individuality can be financed? This case suggests: more, if several partners share the risk — but even then, not without limits. What matters is not only whether an unconventional film gets finished. What also matters is how much unpaid time, private wealth and creative adjustment its making demands.
Original reviewed by the editors · 29 October 2026
