29/11/2018 - The 50th edition of the international film festival in Nyon puts the spotlight on the German filmmaker with an unmissable masterclass

The next edition of Visions du Réel, due to be held from 5 to 13 April 2019, will pay tribute to an immense filmmaker who has become a major figure in world cinema, Werner Herzog. The director will be awarded the Sesterzio d’oro Prix Raiffeisen Maître du Réel, which celebrates the work of major directors in the 'reality' film genre. The honorary award will commemorate (on April 8) the director's entire career and will offer the public an opportunity to attend a masterclass hosted by the master himself. 

Several events have been organised in partnership with the Swiss Film Library and the ECAL (Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne): the previously mentioned masterclass (April 9), as well as screenings of a selection of films and Herzog’s latest feature film Meeting Gorbachev [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (co-directed with André Singer), presented in Swiss premiere.

Born in Munich in 1942, Werner Herzog is considered an emblematic figure of new post-war German cinema. Starting his career in 1984, he divided his life between the German capital and Los Angeles and has shot as many as 70 films. 

Werner Herzog is much loved by Visions du Réel for being both stylistically free and unconventional. The German director adopts a unique film approach, both reflective and direct, somewhere between fiction and documentary. Whether in terms of form or creative process, Herzog has only ever followed his instinct, aspiring to "walk to the end of the world" as he himself once said. An undeniable attraction to the extreme (The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner), madness and megalomania (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), all seasoned by a sense of humour and self-deprecation (Encounters at the End of the World), something the immense German director has always cultivated. Among the actors who have had the honour of collaborating with him are: Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Nicolas Cage, Christian Bale and Nicole Kidman. In 1982 he received the Best Director Award at Cannes Film Festival for his masterpiece Fritzcarraldo.

(Translated from Italian)