Werner Herzog’s work will be celebrated for the 50th edition of Visions du Réel
Visions du Réel, International Film Festival Nyon, will pay tribute to one of the world’s major filmmakers during its 50th edition. It is Werner Herzog who will be awarded the Sesterce d’or Prix Raiffeisen Maître du Réel during the 2019 edition of the Festival (5—13 April 2019), with a laudatio by Carlo Chatrian, Berlinale’s Artistic Director as of its 2020 edition. In partnership with the Cinémathèque suisse and the ECAL, several events are being organised to give the audience the opportunity to meet the legendary film director: a Masterclass on 9 April and screenings of a selection of films as well as his latest feature-length film, Meeting Gorbachev (co-directed with André Singer), as a Swiss premiere.
Werner Herzog was born in 1942 in Munich, Germany and has been living between the Bavarian capital and Los Angeles since 1984. A leading figure of the post-war New German Cinema, he has directed about 70 films.
Moving freely between different forms and filming methods, fiction and documentary, as a filmmaker whose approach is as philosophical as it is physical, Herzog constantly aspires to “walk to the ends of the earth” (The Dark Glow of the Mountains). At times omnipresent, at times leaving room for others, between heroism and testing limits (Herakles, his first short film in 1962, or The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner), megalomania (Aguirre, the Wrath of God or Cobra Verde, two of the five films made with the actor Klaus Kinski), and a certain taste for madness and the absurd, the filmmaker explores and surveys beings and places, not without humour or (self)derision (Encounters at the End of the World). Author of more than a dozen prose works, he has worked with Isabelle Adjani, Nicolas Cage, Christian Bale and Nicole Kidman among others and won the award for Best Director at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival for his masterpiece Fitzcarraldo.
- Meeting Gorbachev (co-réalisé avec André Singer), 2018
- Into the Inferno, 2017
- Salt and Fire, 2016
- Lo and Behold, 2016
- Queen of the Desert, 2014
- From One Second to the Next, 2013 On Death Row I + II, 2012/13
- Into the Abyss – A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life, 2011
- Die Höhle der vergessenen Träume (La Grotte des rêves perdus), 2010
- Ode auf den Morgen der Menschheit (Ode to the Dawn of Man), 2010
- My Son My Son What Have Ye Done (Dans l’œil d’un tueur), 2009
- La Bohème, 2009
- Bad Lieutenant – Port Of Call: New Orleans (Bad Lieutenant – Escale à la Nouvelle-Orléans), 2008
- Encounters at the End of the World, 2007
- Rescue Dawn, 2006
- The Wild Blue Yonder, 2005
- Grizzly Man, 2005
- The White Diamond, 2004
- Rad der Zeit (Wheel of Time), 2003
- Christ and Demons in New Spain, 2002
- Ten Thousand Years Older, 2001
- Pilgrimage, 2001
- Invincible, 2000
- Gott und die Beladenen (The Lord and the Laden), 1999 •My Best Fiend, 1999
- Wings of Hope, 1999
- Little Dieter Needs to Fly, 1997
- Tod für fünf Stimmen (Death for Five Voices), 1995
- Die Verwandlung der Welt in Musik (The Transformation of the World into Music), 1994
- Glocken aus der Tiefe (Les Cloches des profondeurs), 1993 •Lessons of Darkness, 1992
- Film Lektionen (Film Lesson), 1991
- Schrei aus Stein (Scream of Stone), 1991
- Jag Mandir: Das exzentrische Privattheater des Maharadscha von Udaipur (Jag Mandir), 1991
- Echos aus einem düsteren Reich (Echos d’un sombre empire), 1990
- Wodaabe – Die Hirten der Sonne (Wodaabe, les bergers du soleil), 1989
- Les Gauloises, 1988
- Cobra Verde, 1987
- Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen (Le Pays où rêvent les fourmis vertes), 1984
- Gasherbrum – The Dark Glow of the Mountains, 1984
- Die Ballade vom kleinen Soldaten (La Ballade du petit soldat), 1984
- Fitzcarraldo, 1982
- Glaube und Währung – Dr. Gene Scott, Fernsehprediger (God’s Angry Man), 1980
- Huie’s Sermon, 1980
- Woyzeck, 1979
- Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu, fantôme de la nuit), 1978
- La Soufrière, 1977
- Herz aus Glas (Cœur de verre), 1976
- Stroszek (La Ballade de Bruno), 1976
- How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck, 1976
- Mit mir will niemand spielen (Personne ne veut jouer avec moi), 1976
- Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (L’Énigme de Kaspar Hauser), 1974
- The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, 1973
- Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, la colère de Dieu), 1972
- Behinderte Zukunft (Handicapped Future), 1971
- Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit (Pays du silence et de l’obscurité), 1971
- Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen (Les Nains aussi ont commencé petit), 1970
- Fata Morgana, 1970
- Die fliegenden Ärzte von Ostafrika (The Flying Doctors of East Africa), 1969
- Maßnahmen gegen Fanatiker (Precautions Against Fanatics), 1969
- Lebenszeichen (Signes de vie), 1968
- Letzte Worte (Last Words), 1967
- Die beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreutz (The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreutz), 1966
- Spiel im Sand (Game in the Sand), 1964
- Herakles, 1962
