Behrooz Karamizade’s Iranian drama “Empty Nets,” which has its international premiere in the Crystal Globe Competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, offers a sobering look at the increasingly difficult, sometimes hopeless lives of young working-class people in Iran as they strive for better lives.
Set on Iran’s northern Caspian Sea coast, the film follows Amir (Hamid Reza Abbasi), a young man who, desperate to marry his girlfriend Narges (Sadif Asgari), seeks work at a local fishery with the hope of earning enough money for an appropriate dowry and winning over her upper-class parents. Once there, illicit opportunities present themselves and he is soon drawn into the dangerous but lucrative business of sturgeon poaching and the black market caviar trade.
The Iranian-German director, who grew up in Germany, says he always wanted to shoot his first feature film in Iran. “I’m very impressed by Iranian cinema and...
Set on Iran’s northern Caspian Sea coast, the film follows Amir (Hamid Reza Abbasi), a young man who, desperate to marry his girlfriend Narges (Sadif Asgari), seeks work at a local fishery with the hope of earning enough money for an appropriate dowry and winning over her upper-class parents. Once there, illicit opportunities present themselves and he is soon drawn into the dangerous but lucrative business of sturgeon poaching and the black market caviar trade.
The Iranian-German director, who grew up in Germany, says he always wanted to shoot his first feature film in Iran. “I’m very impressed by Iranian cinema and...
- 6/28/2023
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Claudia Squitieri with her mother Claudia Cardinale on Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo: “it’s one of her most adventurous experiences.” Photo: courtesy of Claudia Squitieri
In the second instalment with Claudia Squitieri we discuss more of the films her mother, Claudia Cardinale, starred in. Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Mick Jagger, Jason Robards, Thomas Mauch, My Best Fiend, and filming Fitzcarraldo; encountering Fernando Trueba (The Artist And Model) in Deauville and reconnecting with Jean Rochefort; Manoel de Oliveira and an “atmosphere of mysticality” during the making of Gebo and the Shadow with Jeanne Moreau and Michael Lonsdale, shot by Renato Berta; Blake Edwards and The Pink Panther, the problem with sequels and playing Roberto Benigni’s mother in Son Of The Pink Panther all came up in our conversation.
Claudia Squitieri from Paris on Roberto Benigni with Claudia Cardinale: “He was going “Claudia!!!!” Jumping around every time he saw my mother.
In the second instalment with Claudia Squitieri we discuss more of the films her mother, Claudia Cardinale, starred in. Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Mick Jagger, Jason Robards, Thomas Mauch, My Best Fiend, and filming Fitzcarraldo; encountering Fernando Trueba (The Artist And Model) in Deauville and reconnecting with Jean Rochefort; Manoel de Oliveira and an “atmosphere of mysticality” during the making of Gebo and the Shadow with Jeanne Moreau and Michael Lonsdale, shot by Renato Berta; Blake Edwards and The Pink Panther, the problem with sequels and playing Roberto Benigni’s mother in Son Of The Pink Panther all came up in our conversation.
Claudia Squitieri from Paris on Roberto Benigni with Claudia Cardinale: “He was going “Claudia!!!!” Jumping around every time he saw my mother.
- 2/11/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Legendary director Werner Herzog, one of the founders of the German New Wave, whose films embrace obsessive quests and maddening conflicts with nature, will receive the American Society of Cinematographers’ Board of Governors Award at the 34th annual Asc Awards on January 25 (at Hollywood & Highland’s Ray Dolby Ballroom).
“Werner Herzog is truly a unique storyteller, and we are honored to recognize him for his prolific contributions to cinema,” said Asc President Kees van Oostrum.
Herzog has produced, written, and directed more than 70 feature and documentary films. His volatile, love-hate relationship with actor Klaus Kinski resulted in such powerful films as “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” “Fitzcarraldo,” “Nosferatu the Vampyre,” and “Woyzeck.” Other masterpieces include “Stroszek” and “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser,” both starring street musician-turned actor Bruno S.
Herzog received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature for “Encounters at the End of the World,” while “Little Dieter Needs to Fly...
“Werner Herzog is truly a unique storyteller, and we are honored to recognize him for his prolific contributions to cinema,” said Asc President Kees van Oostrum.
Herzog has produced, written, and directed more than 70 feature and documentary films. His volatile, love-hate relationship with actor Klaus Kinski resulted in such powerful films as “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” “Fitzcarraldo,” “Nosferatu the Vampyre,” and “Woyzeck.” Other masterpieces include “Stroszek” and “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser,” both starring street musician-turned actor Bruno S.
Herzog received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature for “Encounters at the End of the World,” while “Little Dieter Needs to Fly...
- 1/9/2020
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
Like each of Lisandro Alonso‘s cinematic offerings that came before – La Libertad, Los Muertos, Fantasma and Liverpool – the Un Certain Regard debuted, Fipresci Prize winning Jauja regards the solitary man facing the exactings of life, nature and the human spirit. But something is quite different here. There seems to be some kind of scripted narrative, lavish costuming and even what many would call a proper movie star in the robustly mustachioed Viggo Mortensen. Yet by embracing these glacial shifts in the filmmaking process itself, Alonso has elevated his art from contemplatively ethnographic to something much more strange, exciting, illusive and illuminating.
For the first time in his career, Alonso parsed out something resembling a working feature length script in partnership with the Argentinian poet Fabián Casas whom he’d worked with previously on untitled Albert Serra addressed short and took on Mortensen as both his leading man producer on the project,...
For the first time in his career, Alonso parsed out something resembling a working feature length script in partnership with the Argentinian poet Fabián Casas whom he’d worked with previously on untitled Albert Serra addressed short and took on Mortensen as both his leading man producer on the project,...
- 8/25/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Werner Herzog is one of my all time favourite directors. Ever since watching his take on Nosferatu, I knew I was hooked. Exploring both his fictional and documentary films, you will find a fascinating body of work. Sure, some of his opinions I really don’t agree with (I’m talking about you, Into the Abyss and Death Row) but whether you agree with the content or not, a film with Herzog’s name on it will at least touch you in one way.
The British Film Institute recently released a 10 disc box set of some of Herzog’s films. Over the coming weeks (and maybe months) I will be going through each disc. Part review. Part retrospective. Hopefully you will join me on my Herzogian journey.
Whether you are a fan of Herzog or a newcomer to his work, I hope you at least get something out of this.
The British Film Institute recently released a 10 disc box set of some of Herzog’s films. Over the coming weeks (and maybe months) I will be going through each disc. Part review. Part retrospective. Hopefully you will join me on my Herzogian journey.
Whether you are a fan of Herzog or a newcomer to his work, I hope you at least get something out of this.
- 10/3/2014
- by Mondo Squallido
- Nerdly
I believe there's a hint as to what we're supposed to take out of Werner Herzog introduces Cobra Verde in the speed with which he introduces the film's central character, Francisco Manoel da Silva (Klaus Kinski), a ruined Brazilian rancher-turned-bandit who eventually finds himself at the center of the slave trade between Africa and South America. We never get to know Francisco the rancher, instead we first see him rumbling down a muddy hill, where he works for a gold mining company, and has just learned his wages have gone straight to the bank. That night he kills his boss, the scene cuts to black, next we meet the man Francisco has become, the feared bandit known as Cobra Verde (Green Snake). Cold, fearless and without sympathy, da Silva's travels eventually find him in the favor of Don Octavio Coutinho (Jose Lewgoy), who hires da Silva to oversea his sugar...
- 6/4/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
When you begin exploring the work of director Werner Herzog some (if not most) will argue Aguirre, the Wrath of God is likely the best place to start. Though I don't think you get the full picture of this portion of Herzog's career without including Fitzcarraldo or the documentary My Best Fiend, which came another 12 years later, detailing Herzog's work with Aguirre star Klaus Kinski. Without Kinski, Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo and, most likely, Herzog would not be the same. With that in mind, know this is the first review in a coming triptych, meant to build off one another to the point an entire picture begins to form. History, in this case, cannot be ignored. Considered an entry in the West German New Wave, Aguirre is very loosely based on the accounts of Spanish Dominican monk Gaspar de Carvajal (played in the film by Del Negro) as well as the life...
- 4/30/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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Herzog's riveting Brechtian epic about a catastrophic expedition across the Andes and down the Amazon in 1560 is arguably his best work and is being rereleased in cinemas and shown in a BFI Southbank retrospective. First released in 1972, it brought together for the first time two of the wildest, most explosive talents in world cinema, Herzog himself and Klaus Kinski, who plays Aguirre, a paranoid, power-crazed Spanish conquistador. Magnificently shot by Thomas Mauch under appalling conditions, it begins and ends with stunning images. The first is a breathtaking five-minute sequence of a vast procession of soldiers, priests and well-dressed ladies winding up and down a precipitous Peruvian valley. The second, a metaphor for a civilisation gone mad or a colonial impulse gone lunatically astray, focuses on the crazed Aguirre strutting around a drifting raft with no one to listen to his grandiose ravings except...
Herzog's riveting Brechtian epic about a catastrophic expedition across the Andes and down the Amazon in 1560 is arguably his best work and is being rereleased in cinemas and shown in a BFI Southbank retrospective. First released in 1972, it brought together for the first time two of the wildest, most explosive talents in world cinema, Herzog himself and Klaus Kinski, who plays Aguirre, a paranoid, power-crazed Spanish conquistador. Magnificently shot by Thomas Mauch under appalling conditions, it begins and ends with stunning images. The first is a breathtaking five-minute sequence of a vast procession of soldiers, priests and well-dressed ladies winding up and down a precipitous Peruvian valley. The second, a metaphor for a civilisation gone mad or a colonial impulse gone lunatically astray, focuses on the crazed Aguirre strutting around a drifting raft with no one to listen to his grandiose ravings except...
- 6/10/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★★ What defines a bona fide cult classic? Is it its bold, inimitable style? It's army of loyal devotees, perhaps? Or is it its unconventional approach to the cinematic form as a whole? Whichever of the aforementioned attributes floats your monkey-infested raft, Bavarian director Werner Herzog's 1972 effort Aguirre, the Wrath of God more than meets the criteria. A firm favourite among critics, filmmakers and arthouse admirers the world over, Herzog's existentialist trek through the perilous Amazon rainforest helped to herald in the era of New German Expression and also introduced wildman Klaus Kinski to dumbstruck audiences.
Now newly restored and returning to selected cinemas in June of this year courtesy of the British Film Institute, Herzog's third feature stars the incomparable Kinski - once described by Herzog as "probably the most difficult actor in the world to deal with" - as the titular Don Lope de Aguirre, a power-crazed conquistador...
Now newly restored and returning to selected cinemas in June of this year courtesy of the British Film Institute, Herzog's third feature stars the incomparable Kinski - once described by Herzog as "probably the most difficult actor in the world to deal with" - as the titular Don Lope de Aguirre, a power-crazed conquistador...
- 6/6/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Herzog's films portray humans as frail creatures caught in the gap between an indifferent nature and a punishing God. Ahead of the UK release of As Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing, which Herzog executive produced, Michael Newton celebrates a unique world view
For a man whose "social network" is his kitchen table, Werner Herzog's image is very present on the internet. You can see him (deceptively edited) discoursing in doom-laden tones concerning the "enormity of the stupidity" of hipsters or Republicans. (Originally he was discussing chickens.) He's there (or rather someone impersonating him is) intoning about the dark intensities of "Where's Waldo". (The clip has had more than a million hits on YouTube.) And, most notably, he can be seen in Les Blank's short film (this time for real) eating his shoe to celebrate the successful completion of Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven (1978). While the shoe boils,...
For a man whose "social network" is his kitchen table, Werner Herzog's image is very present on the internet. You can see him (deceptively edited) discoursing in doom-laden tones concerning the "enormity of the stupidity" of hipsters or Republicans. (Originally he was discussing chickens.) He's there (or rather someone impersonating him is) intoning about the dark intensities of "Where's Waldo". (The clip has had more than a million hits on YouTube.) And, most notably, he can be seen in Les Blank's short film (this time for real) eating his shoe to celebrate the successful completion of Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven (1978). While the shoe boils,...
- 6/1/2013
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
Werner Herzog has forever been a maverick of modern cinema and certainly never one to work within the constraints of the so-called ‘normal cinema’. A man who would rather forge his own path straight up the middle of the rock face of filmmaking, ignoring the easier Sherpa led routes on either side of that particular furrow.
Werner Herzog, the director of many classics of the left leaning art house cinema scene, including Aguirre The Wrath of God (1972), The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (1974) and Stroszek (1977). Not forgetting his most well known work Fitzcarraldo’ (1982) which emerged victorious from the epic struggles of which it was born, deep within the dark recesses of the Peruvian Jungle. It’s Herzog’s innate sense of persistence and drive which lends his films and Fitzcarraldo in particular a slight air of madness. You get the feeling that no matter what, Herzog’s projects will be finished...
Werner Herzog, the director of many classics of the left leaning art house cinema scene, including Aguirre The Wrath of God (1972), The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (1974) and Stroszek (1977). Not forgetting his most well known work Fitzcarraldo’ (1982) which emerged victorious from the epic struggles of which it was born, deep within the dark recesses of the Peruvian Jungle. It’s Herzog’s innate sense of persistence and drive which lends his films and Fitzcarraldo in particular a slight air of madness. You get the feeling that no matter what, Herzog’s projects will be finished...
- 1/7/2011
- by Kris Tebbs
- Obsessed with Film
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