German director Werner Herzog will be
awarded the Venice Film Festival's Lifetime Achievement Golden
Lion when the 82nd edition of the world's oldest cinema festival
takes place from August 27 to September 6, the Venice Biennale
said on Tuesday.
"I feel deeply honored to receive a Lifetime Achievement
Honorary Golden Lion by the Venice Biennale," said the
82-year-old film-maker, whose works include Aguirre, the Wrath
of God, Fitzcarraldo, and Nosferatu the Vampyre.
"I have always tried to be a Good Soldier of Cinema, and this
feels like a medal for my work. Thank you.
"However, I have not gone into retirement. I work as always.
"A few weeks ago, I just finished a documentary in Africa, Ghost
Elephants, and at this moment, I am shooting my next feature
film, Bucking Fastard, in Ireland.
"I am developing an animated film, based on my novel, The
Twilight World, and I am acting the voice of a creature in Bong
Joon Ho's upcoming animated film.
"I am not done yet"-
Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera described
Herzog as a "physical filmmaker and indefatigable hiker.
He added that the German director "constantly crosses the planet
Earth pursuing hitherto unseen images, testing our ability to
look, challenging us to grasp what lies beyond the appearance of
reality, and probing the limits of filmic representation in an
unflagging search for a higher, ecstatic truth and new sensorial
experiences....
"Herzog's career is both fascinating and hazardous because it
involves total commitment and putting oneself on the line to the
point of physical risk, where catastrophe constantly lurks.
"A brilliant narrator of unusual stories, Herzog is also the
last heir of the great tradition of German romanticism, a
visionary humanist, and a tireless explorer dedicated to
perpetual wandering, in search (as he said) 'of a decent and
fitting place for mankind, a Landscape of the Soul'".
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