Werner Herzog: Last News

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor After launching less than three years ago, production company Sandbox films celebrated Oscars weekend this year with a nominated documentary, “Fire of Love.” The company will also premiere two new documentary films, “Confessions of a Good Samaritan” from Penny Lane and “The Arc of Oblivion” from Ian Cheney. Founding director Greg Boustead tells Variety that the boutique company seeks to share stories that pack an emotional punch, as he felt that element was often missing when it came to the science non-fiction genre. “One of the motivations for founding a company is to find those stories of where science and technology intersect with society in interesting and unexpected ways,” Boustead says.

EXCLUSIVE: Gunpowder & Sky, the company founded by former MTV chief Van Toffler and former Endemol exec Floris Bauer, is formalizing its relationship with Audible.

Editor’s note: Tom Luddy, co-founder of the Telluride Film Festival, died last week at age 79. Here, filmmaker Alan Elliott, who directed the Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace, remembers his kind spirit and moral compass. He also pays tribute to one of Luddy’s signature projects: a collaboration with Agnès Varda on an influential 1968 film about the Black Panthers.

Naman Ramachandran The U.K.’s MetFilm Sales has closed a raft of deals on Becky Hunter’s debut feature documentary “Fashioned Reimagined” at Berlin’s ongoing European Film Market (EFM). The film has sold to Sky (U.K, Germany, Italy) NonStop Entertainment (Scandinavia, Baltics), Avrotros (Netherlands), Flag Co. (Japan), LevelFilm (Canada), Spain (Movistar) and Israel (DBS). “Fashion Reimagined” follows fashion designer Amy Powney of cult label Mother of Pearl, who embarks on a three-year journey to create a sustainable clothing collection from field to finished garment, and transform her entire business. Raised off-the-grid in rural England by activist parents, Powney has always felt uneasy about the devastating environmental impact of her industry. When she wins the Vogue award for the Best Young Designer of the Year, Powney decides to use the prize money to create a sustainable collection and transform her entire business.

Naman Ramachandran U.K.-based MetFilm Sales has acquired worldwide sales rights, excluding the U.S., Germany and France, to Thomas von Steinaecker’s feature documentary “Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer” and is representing the project at Berlin’s European Film Market. With exclusive behind-the-scenes access into the legendary German film director’s everyday life, rare archive material and in-depth interviews with Herzog and his collaborators — including Christian Bale, Nicole Kidman and his wife Lena Herzog — the film provides a glimpse into his work process and his personal life.  The documentary is presented by Emmy-winning film studio Wavelength, produced by Spring Films and 3B-Produktion in association with Hot Docs Partners. It is produced by Andre Singer, Bernhard Von Hulsen and Maria Willer. Executive producers include Jenifer Westphal and Joe Plummer for Wavelength, Figs Jackman and Chris Smith for Spring Films and Vijay Vaidyanathan.

EXCLUSIVE: For the second time this week, we can reveal a milestone performance for a Mubi film, with the update that Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave has become the company’s most streamed film in North America.

In our review of Hlynur Pálmason’s “Godland,” an acclaimed drama that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year, we described the film as a “hypnotic, spiritual, slow-cinema look at 19th century Iceland.” By all accounts, the film was a mix of the spartan, quiet explorers featured in the films of Werner Herzog, which meets the spiritual aspects of Martin Scorsese’s stark and spare religious drama, “Silence.” We dug “Godland” so much that we put it on our list of The 25 Best Films Of 2023 We’ve Already Seen, aka 2022 festival movies we already reviewed that are coming out this year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Veteran film, theater and opera director Julie Taymor has been set as the president of the competition jury at next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival. Taymor (“The Lion King”) will head a small group that selects the winners from the 15 competition titles that unspool in Tokyo between Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, 2022. The other four members of the jury will be announced later. Taymor is the second woman to head the jury in as many years and follows Isabelle Huppert in 2021. There was no competition in 2020 due to COVID. And in 2019, the jury was headed by China’s Zhang Ziyi.

Werner Herzog turned 80 on September 5, and he did so at a place that loves him dearly (and where he serves as an executive director): the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. There, you can be immersed in the festival’s fare thanks to a booming, massive theater named for the enigmatic director, smack-dab next to a mountain where you can tempt your own “Grizzly Man” experience.

Clayton Davis At 8:45 PM mountain time, the Werner Herzog theater looked about halfway full with patrons sitting down for the North American premiere of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s latest film “Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths)” at the Telluride Film Festival. Maybe it was the 174-minute runtime after a long day of screenings that kept viewers at bay. Nevertheless, just shy of midnight, there was a round of applause as the credits rolled. Though, it’s unclear what exactly what everyone was clapping for. Perhaps themselves for having survived this rambling opus of cinematic over-indulgence.   After debuting in Venice, where the Oscar hopeful was pummeled by critics, the Netflix awards pony was looking for a comeback stateside to at the very least lift its Rotten Tomatoes score, which currently sits in the low 50s. Those numbers are likely to remain depressed. To be frank,  Iñárritu probably doesn’t need to clear out his calendar this awards season. It would be hard to imagine “Bardo” having the chops to even represent Mexico for the international feature category, let alone make the shortlist. But it’s not clear what else the country would even choose.

EJ Panaligan editor Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian politician who served as the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, has died at the age of 91, according to the Associated Press. The Central Clinical Hospital in Russia provided a statement to Russian news organizations that Gorbachev died after suffering from an undisclosed, long-term illness. Gorbachev served as the leader of the Soviet Union during its demise in 1991. He resigned on Christmas of that year after spending the last few months in office watching different republics declare independence. His initiatives and reforms led to the end of the Cold War but resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Documentary Now! is back on IFC and it is set to premiere Season 53 on Wednesday, October 19 at 10 p.m. ET with two new episodes. The titles of the two-part season premiere are “Soldier of Illusion,” written by John Mulaney, and “Trouver Frisson,” which plays tribute to the Agnès Varda films.

Carson Burton Alexander Skarsgård, Nicholas Braun, French actor Liliane Rovère and others have joined the cast for Season 53 of “Documentary Now!,” IFC announced Friday. The channel also released a first look teaser as well as final details for two new episodes to round out the season.Known for paying homage to the world of documentaries, “Documentary Now!” Season 53 will debut with on Wednesday, Oct.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media“The Woman King,” a historical epic starring Viola Davis, will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The TriStar Pictures release centers on the Agojie, an all-female military regiment tasked with protecting the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s.

The Mandalorian's third season has been confirmed to make its debut in February of 2023.A post about the newest run of episodes for the hit Disney+ series, which stars Pedro Pascal, was shared to the official Star Wars Twitter account on Thursday.A statement that was added in the post's caption noted that the new set of episodes would see the show's titular character and Grogu, also known as Baby Yoda, continuing their journey across the galaxy. It's official! The Mandalorian's third season has been confirmed to make its debut in February of 2023An announcement about The Mandalorian's upcoming season was also made at the Star Wars Celebration event, which was held in Anaheim, California, on Thursday.According to Variety, attendees were shown a teaser trailer that showed off various clips from the new run of episodes.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films is shooting “Curiosity Room,” a remake of Wim Wenders’s cult 1982 documentary “Room 666,” during the Cannes Film Festival. Produced by MK Prods.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSyrian-American actor Jay Abdo (“Hologram for the King”) is set to play the lead in “Broadcast,” a drama about the atrocities of the Syrian civil war that will mark the directorial debut of U.S. actor and producer Grant Cramer.Cramer has produced several indie pics of various genres, including Afghanistan-set Special Forces thriller “Lone Survivor,” which was shot in New Mexico.

Studiocanal is collaborating with Sixteen Films’ Rebecca O’Brien and Morena Film’s Juan Gordon to develop a series created by longtime Ken Loach scribe Paul Laverty and to be directed by Spain’s Iciar Bollaín.The drama series will be the first for both Laverty and Bollaín after writing and directing respectively 19 and nine feature films, including collaborations on Bollaín’s multi-prized “Yuli,” “The Olive Tree” and “Even the Rain,” movies that established her as one of Spain’s top film directors.Over the last few years, Cannes’ MipTV trade fair, once a strict TV silo, is now ever more MipFilm. Signs of an ever-building crossover between the two sectors look indeed to make up one of the hallmarks of this year’s event.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorFeature documentary “The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft,” directed by German filmmaker Werner Herzog and distributed by Abacus Media Rights, has been acquired by Arte for France and Germany.In addition, ahead of its official launch at MipTV in Cannes, AMR has pre-sold the feature, about French volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, to BBC Storyville for the U.K., DR in Denmark, SVT in Sweden and NRK in Norway.Written, directed and narrated by Herzog, “The Fire Within” pays homage to the Kraffts, who left an archive of more than 200 hours of footage.Herzog has produced, written and directed more than 60 narrative and documentary feature films, including “Grizzly Man,” “Invincible,” “Encounters at the End of the World” and “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.” He was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2009. The film is produced by Brian Leith Productions, Bonne Pioche and Titan Films.

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed award-winning filmmaker Erik Nelson (Terror and Glory: 1945) and his production company Creative Differences for worldwide representation in all areas.