Werner Herzog is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusual talents in obscure fields, or individuals in conflict with nature. His style involves avoiding storyboards, emphasizing improvisation, and placing his cast and crew into real situations mirroring those in the film they are working on.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a 1972 epic historical drama film produced, written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in South America in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado. The accompanying soundtrack was composed and performed by kosmische band Popol Vuh. The film is an international co-production between West Germany and Mexico.
Klaus Kinski was a German actor. Equally renowned for his intense performance style and notorious for his volatile personality, he appeared in over 130 film roles in a career that spanned 40 years, from 1948 to 1988. He is best known for starring in five films directed by Werner Herzog from 1972 to 1987, who would later chronicle their tumultuous relationship in the documentary My Best Fiend.
Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 West German epic adventure-drama film written, produced, and directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Klaus Kinski as would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon basin. The character was inspired by Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald, who once transported a disassembled steamboat over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald.
Stroszek is a 1977 West German tragicomedy film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Bruno S., Eva Mattes, and Clemens Scheitz. Written specifically for Bruno S., the film was shot in Plainfield, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Most of the lead roles are played by inexperienced actors.
Grizzly Man is a 2005 American documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast and conservationist Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard at Katmai National Park, Alaska. The film includes some of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with brown bears before 2003, and of interviews with people who knew or were involved with Treadwell, in addition to professionals who deal with wild bears.
My Best Fiend is a 1999 German documentary film written and directed by Werner Herzog, about his tumultuous yet productive relationship with German actor Klaus Kinski. It was released on DVD in 2000 by Anchor Bay.
Little Dieter Needs to Fly is a 1997 German-British-French documentary film written and directed by Werner Herzog, produced by Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, and premiered on German television. The film follows the life of Dieter Dengler, in particular being shot down during the Vietnam War and his capture, imprisonment, escape, and rescue. Herzog went on to direct a dramatized version of the story, Rescue Dawn, which stars Christian Bale as Dengler in 2006.
La Soufrière – Warten auf eine unausweichliche Katastrophe is a 1977 documentary film in which German director Werner Herzog visits an evacuated town on the island of Guadeloupe, where the volcano La Grande Soufrière is predicted to erupt.
Rescue Dawn is a 2006 epic war drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog, based on an adapted screenplay written from his 1997 documentary film Little Dieter Needs to Fly. The film stars Christian Bale and is based on the true story of German-American pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down and captured by villagers sympathetic to the Pathet Lao during an American military campaign in the Vietnam War. Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, Pat Healy, and Toby Huss also have principal roles. The film project, which had initially come together during 2004, began shooting in Thailand in August 2005. It received critical acclaim but was a box office failure.
LANSA Flight 508 was a Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima which crashed in a thunderstorm en route from Lima to Pucallpa in Peru on 24 December 1971, killing 91 people — all six of its crew and 85 of its 86 passengers. It is the deadliest lightning strike disaster in aviation history.
Juliane Margaret Beate Koepcke /Joo-lia-nay, KOP-kay/, also known by her married name Juliane Diller, is a German-Peruvian mammalogist who specialises in bats. The daughter of German zoologists Maria and Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, she became famous at the age of 17 as the sole survivor of the 1971 LANSA Flight 508 plane crash; after falling 3,000 m (10,000 ft) while strapped to her seat and suffering numerous injuries, she survived 11 days alone in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest until she was rescued by local fishermen after finding their camp.
Maria Koepcke was a German ornithologist known for her work with Neotropical bird species. Koepcke was a well-respected authority in South American ornithology and her work is still referenced today. For her efforts, she is commemorated in the scientific names of four Peruvian bird species and, along with her husband, a Peruvian lizard species.
Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke was a German zoologist, ornithologist, and herpetologist. He was married to ornithologist Maria Koepcke, and was the father of mammalogist Juliane Koepcke.
Ballad of the Little Soldier is a 1984 documentary film directed by Werner Herzog and Denis Reichle about child soldiers in Nicaragua. The film focuses on a group of Miskito Indians who used children soldiers in their resistance against the Sandinistas.
Ten Thousand Years Older is a 2002 documentary film by Werner Herzog about the Amondauas people of Brazil. The ten-minute film was produced and included as part of the Ten Minutes Older project, released in the collection The Trumpet.
Miracles Still Happen is a 1974 Italian film directed by Giuseppe Maria Scotese. It features the story of Juliane Koepcke, the sole survivor of 92 passengers and crew, in the 24 December 1971 crash of LANSA Flight 508 in the Peruvian rainforest.
Wings of Hope may refer to:
Walter Saxer is a Swiss film producer, production manager, screenwriter, and film director, born in 1947 in St. Gallen.
