LIGHTSTRUCK is a Los Angeles based experimental film screening series curated by Zena Grey and Mark Toscano, as well as a growing informational website related to experimental film and archiving.
OUR NEXT LIGHTSTRUCK EVENT:
Sunday, May 24, 2026 @ 12:00pm
2220 Arts + Archives, Los Angeles
**note atypical start time!**
Ulrike Ottinger’s TAIGA: A Journey to Northern Mongolia
This screening begins at 12pm noon and will conclude at approximately 10pm, with two breaks.
“Taiga is an experience that causes us to think about why we live as we do, what it is to be human, and what is important in life.” (Roger Ebert)
Lightstruck is extremely excited to present a truly epic cinematic experience, as we screen Ulrike Ottinger’s nearly 8.5-hour, immersive documentary Taiga (1992) in a special all-day screening.
Known for her meticulously crafted experimental narrative films infusing political radicalism with a rich, surrealist opulence, German artist Ulrike Ottinger has also produced a singular body of memorable nonfiction work, though perhaps none so monumental – and mesmerizingly beautiful – as Taiga.
During an extended period spent in Northern Mongolia through multiple seasons, Ottinger approached ethnography in a radically different way, rejecting authoritative narrativizing or presumptuous didacticism. The extended length of the film reflects Ottinger’s larger impulse and approach in this project: to spend time – unadulterated, attentive time – with the Northern Mongolians she had befriended, and to enable their own distinctive approach to time and space in everyday life dictate the scale and pace of the film.
Over ten parts and 38 chapters, we see a seance, two weddings, preparation of foods, wrestling contests, music performances, storytelling sessions, and countless other events large and small, yet all equally defining the overall year-to-year and day-to-day experiences of nomadic life in the Darkhad Valley of Northern Mongolia. The film succeeds so brilliantly in part because of the unapologetically and earnestly fascinated gaze with which Ottinger documents what she sees, and the clear love for and engagement with people that the filmmaking reflects.
“I tried to explain my wish, which was to record a way of life that no longer exists in the place where I’ve come from, in order to show the document to the people back home, who are very interested in the nomadic ways. At first this puzzled them, but then they thought, Yes, indeed, we too would be interested to know how your people live…” (Ulrike Ottinger)
Screening:
Taiga: A Journey to Northern Mongolia (1991/92)
by Ulrike Ottinger
501 minutes, English subtitles
Digital restoration courtesy of Arsenal with thanks to Carsten Zimmer, Reinhild Feldhaus, and especially Ulrike Ottinger.
Program by Zena Grey and Mark Toscano. Notes by Mark Toscano.
Snacks, coffee and tea will be provided, as well as some dinner at the evening break, for a suggested donation.
Schedule:
12:00pm: Part 1 (Chapters 1-13) (2:57)
(ends 3:00-3:15)
(approximately 20 minute intermission)
3:30pm: Part 2 (Chapters 14-26) (2:52)
(ends 6:30-6:45)
(approximately 45-60 minute intermission)
7:30pm: Part 3 (Chapters 27-38) (2:32)
(ends 10:00-10:15pm)
LIGHTSTRUCK 