Werner Herzog

This guided tour will take place in German. Please consult our German language event calendar for further information.

FR/UK/CH/USA, 2022, directed by Werner Herzog

120 min / DCP / OV

Werner Herzog is fascinated by vulcanos. In 1977 his film ‘La Soufrière’ was produced just before an eruption, in 2016 he shot ‘Into the Inferno’, including film material by the vulcanologists Katja and Maurice Krafft. Now, he dedicated a requiem to the couple. For this, Herzog was able to choose from over 250 hours of footage by the French researchers, “material of unbelievable power and beauty”, he says. 

Introduction: Rainer Rother

This screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: 8,50 €

USA, 2015, directed by Werner Herzog

128 minutes / DCP / OV w/ sub

Star-studded cinema of a different kind: for his film based on the life of British researcher Gertrude Bell, Herzog managed to land Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damien Lewis and Robert Pattinson. The scenes set in the Middle East were largely shot in Morocco. The film draws a line from women’s attempts at emancipation in Victorian Britain to the First World War and the post-war order established in the Arab world. For a Herzog film, the story is narrated in a comparatively linear way.

This screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

USA/UK, 2012–2013, directed by Werner Herzog

210 minutes / DCP / OV w/ sub

The second part of the eight-part series portraying deathrow inmates in a high security prison in Texas. Responding to his considerate questions, asked in voiceover, the inmates give Herzog and his audience insights into the depths of the human soul. For the director, who positions himself as opposed to the death penalty, this series is about looking at »monstrous acts« not at »monsters«.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

CA/USA/FR/GER/UK, 2010, directed by Werner Herzog

Since childhood, Werner Herzog has been fascinated by stone-age cave paintings. First discovered in 1994, the Chauvet Cave contains a large number of such paintings, some of the oldest in the world. In 2010, Herzog was given permission to shoot in the cave, which is not accessible to the public. The film presents the diversity of the different depictions there, while scientists explain the context in which these testimonies of early civilization were created.

90 minutes / DCP / OV w/ sub

Introduction: Georg Simbeni

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

USA/GER, 2009, directed by Werner Herzog

Herzog and Herbert Golder wrote the script based on an authentic case. Eric Basset, David Lynch’s producer, took on the production of the film. According to Herzog, his and Lynch’s films “don’t speak to, but rather dance with one another”. But some things here can indeed be grasped as quotes, the characters often come across as slightly off-kilter – particularly the mother (Grace Zabriskie), who doesn’t tire of serving wobbly jelly even though nobody likes it. Michael Shannon’s performance as the confused son-turned-murderer exudes a disturbing charisma from the very beginning.

91 minutes / Blu-ray / OV w/ sub

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

GER/FR/UK, 2005, directed by Werner Herzog

80 minutes / 35mm / OV

The most unusual of all science fiction films. No special effects, but rather found footage, newly arranged. Brad Dourif steps in front of the camera as an alien, a refugee from a dying planet in the Andromeda galaxy. The plan to colonize the Earth having failed, the aliens now work in secret, including for the CIA. Full of hidden comedy, this intricate story turns amateur footage of the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Atlantis into an account of a terrestrial expedition to the planet Wild Blue Yonder in the neighboring galaxy. Underwater footage shot by Henry Kaiser in the Antarctic stands in for this entirely flooded planet.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

FRG/UK, 1999, directed by Werner Herzog

95 minutes / DCP / OV w/ sub

In the oublic mind, Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog remain closely linked to this day. In 1999, eight years after Kinski’s death, Herzog shot a documentary about his hot-tempered star. Rejected by ZDF for fear it would end up as an exercise in “unbearable navel-gazing”, the film turned out to be a hit with audiences. ‘Mein liebster Feind’ shows Kinski in diametrically opposed extremes: as someone bubbling over with rage, whose uncontrolled outbursts could also tip into violence, and as a sensitive and tender man plagued by an inner restlessness.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

‘Julianes Sturz in den Dschungel’, (‘Wings of Hope‹), FRG/UK, 1999, directed by Werner Herzog

65 minutes / DCP / OV w/ Engl. sub

Herzog, who failed to get seats for himself and his team on the overbooked flight LANSA 508, which later crashed, wanted for a long time to make a film with its only survivor, Juliane Koepcke, who was 17 at the time. With her and her husband, he looks for the site of the crash, they find remains of the airplane and follow the path that led Juliane out of the rainforest after 12 days.

‘La Soufrière’, FRG, 1977, directed by Werner Herzog

30 minutes / 16mm / OV

The La Soufrière volcano on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe shows all signs imminent eruption, which experts predict to be an “unavoidable catastrophe”. With his camera team, Werner Herzog heads into the evacuated towns and documents streets and houses entirely devoid of people that are now populated by the various domesticated animals left behind.

Introduction: Nils Warnecke

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

‘Lektionen in Finsternis’, (Lessons in Darkess), UK/GER, 1992, directed by Werner Herzog

54 minutes / 35 mm / German version

A film like a requiem. The detritus left behind by the defeated Iraqi invading army: tanks and military equipment shot to pieces, destroyed settlements and streets, burning oil wells, contaminated soil in Kuwait, where extinguishing teams with special tools try to put out the fire. Survivors give accounts of torture and suffering, it is a journey into darkness, a lament about mistreated creation. There is no aestheticization of violence, but rather the heightened depiction of a human-made catastrophe.

Introduction: Magnus Knoll

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

FRG, 1977, directed by Werner Herzog

115 Minuten / 35mm / OV w/ Engl. sub

After his release from prison, a street musician (Bruno S.), who plays in apartment courtyards, tries to escape the constraints and rejections he suffers by deciding to emigrate to America with his girlfriend Eva (Eva Mattes) and neighbor Mr Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz). Initially, all seems to turn out well. Then, the financial problems catch up with them. Bruno eventually seizes a ski-lift moving up and down in endless circles, while his car burns out at the station below and chickens perform an incessant dance in a sort of animal peepshow: one of the strongest closing images in the Herzog cosmos.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

(‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God’), FRG, 1972, directed by Werner Herzog

95 minutes / 35mm / OV w/ Engl. sub

Herzog’s first trip into the Peruvian rainforest was hardly uncontroversial. On location, he stages the insane enterprise of a Spanish conquistador, who is searching for the legendary Eldorado, planning the foundation of a model state with a new humankind. A conqueror rather than an adventurer, he pursues his goal ruthlessly and lawlessly, which ends in failure as he drifts alone on the river with a troop of monkeys towards destruction. Imperialism and hubris, contempt for humanity and ignorance are the themes, with the greatest possible authenticity the goal. It was Herzog’s first collaboration with Klaus Kinski, the ideal casting for an obsessive of this kind.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

‘Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner’, (The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner’), FRG, 1974, directed by Werner Herzog

45 minutes / 16mm / OV w/ Engl. sub

With this film, Werner Herzog discovers the significance of the voiceover commentary – using his own voice. Walter Steiner, the magnificent Swiss ski jumper, outshines his competitors. But the film doesn’t just make this clear, but also reveals the mechanisms of a sport that shows barely any consideration for its jumpers, focussing instead on spectacle. With almost frightening clarity, the many falls shown highlight the considerable risk linked to these competitions; best distances should be attained, at almost any price. Steiner sees through these mechanisms and doesn’t submit to them, it’s simply about pursuing his dream of flying: a true Herzog hero.

‘Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit’, (‘Land of Silence and Darkness’), FRG, 1971, directed by Werner Herzog

85 minutes / 16mm / OV w/ Engl. sub

The piercing description of the life of a deaf and blind woman. A document of it’s era which points out society’s lack of care for disabled people. “Shocking” due to the precision of its observations, constructed with empathy and tenderness. Fini Straubinger, the film’s protagonist, remained a close friend of Werner Herzog for many years after their collaboration.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

FRG, 1971, directed by Werner Herzog

79 minutes / 35mm / OV w/ Engl. sub

An essay film structured in three parts: creation, paradise and the golden age. Three narrators allow an artificial mythology to unfurl. The images, largely shot in North Africa, are captivating and fascinating precisely because they don’t “illustrate” anything. With great freedom, this first part of the so-called creation trilogy links together scorched landscapes, rusty parts of abandoned equipment, hard-working people, lonely settlements. This world is shown through the eyes of an alien, mysterious and not without moments of humor.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

(‘Even Dwarfs Started Small’), FRG, 1970, directed by Werner Herzog

96 minutes / 35 mm / OV w/ Engl. sub

While the director is away, the residents of an closed institution rebel. One of the guards tries in vain to stand up to the threatening chaos and takes one of the rebels prisoner in his office. The occupants’ sudden freedom lets their imagination run wild and they delight in transgression without any clear goal.

Cinematographer Thomas Mauch is our guest for the evening and will screen his documentary short “Der Welt zeigen, dass man noch da ist”, which takes a look at the shooting of the film.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

(‘Signs of Life’), FRG, 1968, directed by Werner Herzog

90 minutes / DCP / OV with Engl. sub

Herzog’s first feature was shot on the islands of Kos – where his grandfather had worked as an archeologist – and Crete. It received the Silver Bear for Best First Feature at the 1968 Berlinale and impressed many, including Lotte Eisner, who saw it as a true creative departure. The plot is set at the end of the Second World War; the soldier Stroszek is recovering from an injury and is supposed to guard a munitions dump in an old fortress together with two of his comrades. He marries one of the village residents and attempts to escape the paralyzing inactivity of his work by taking on other tasks. When out exploring, the sight of hundreds of spinning windmills knocks him sideways. Full of confusion, he takes over command of the fortress and even threatens to set the sun on fire.

The screening is part of the film series “Werner Herzog”.

→ Kino Arsenal – Potsdamer Straße 2 – 10785 Berlin | Admission: € 8,50

This curator-led tour will take place in German. Please consult our German language event calendar for further information.

This guided tour will take place in German. Please consult our German language event calendar for further information.

This curator-led tour takes place in German. Please consult our German language event calendar for further information.

This guided tour will take place in German. Please consult our German language event calendar for further information.