On the occasion of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement awarded to Werner Herzog at the latest Venice International Film Festival, the Centro Pecci hosts a retrospective dedicated to the great German master, presenting six films restored and re-released in Italian cinemas by the Cineteca di Bologna.
The program focuses on the golden age of Herzog’s production — the 1970s — when the Munich-born auteur created some of his most celebrated masterpieces, from Aguirre, the Wrath of God to Fitzcarraldo, from The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser to Nosferatu the Vampyre.
Watching these films today means immersing oneself in a cinematic universe that revolutionized the language of realism, pushing it to the limits of physical and sensory experience. In Herzog, the pursuit of an ultimate truth coexists with a profoundly romantic yearning for the absolute: his protagonists — visionary madmen, drifters, restless souls — embody humanity’s eternal struggle to find meaning in the world and in nature.
The last heir to the great German Romantic tradition, Herzog remains a visionary humanist whose voice continues to speak to our time with power and relevance.