Werner Herzog / Uk, France, Switzerland, USA / 2022 / 81’ / English / Italian Subtitles

OPENING MOVIE

A feature-length documentary about Maurice and Katia Krafft, the legendary volcanologists and filmmakers from the Alsace region in France.
They were on Mt. Unzen, in Kyushu, Japan, when a pyroclastic flow – a cloud of superheated gasses and particles – descended at over 100mph from the peak of the volcano, consuming everything in its path. It instantly killed them. They were too close. They were almost always too close. On the day before they died, Maurice said in an interview: “I am never afraid, because I’ve seen so many eruptions in 25 years that, even if I die tomorrow, I don’t care.”. Werner Herzog used The Krafft’s archive of over 200 hours of footage, unprecedented in its spectacular and hypnotic beauty, and created a film that cannot be categorized. It is not a biography. It is rather a requiem celebrating the legacy of Katia and Maurice Krafft.

Screenplay Werner Herzog
Production Brian Leith Productions, Bonne Pioche Television & Titan Films
Executive producer Mandy Leith, Julien Dumont, Alexandre Soullier

Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied History and German Literature in Munich and Pittsburgh. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature- and documentary films, such as Aguirre der Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, Wrath of God, 1972), Nosferatu Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu, 1978), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Lektionen in Finsternis (Apocalypse in the Desert, 1992), Little dieter needs to fly (1997), Mein liebster Feind (My dearest friend, 1999), Invincible (Invincibile, 2000), Grizzly man (2005), Encounters at the end of the world (2007), Die Höhle der vergessenen Träume (Cave of forgotten dreams, 2010). Werner Herzog has published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas. Werner Herzog lives in Munich and Los Angeles.