By Laura Frykberg
When German documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog was 14, he walked from Munich to Paris.
This year’s German film festival in Wellington celebrates the man whose films reflect that sense of adventure he showed in his early years.
Herzog was shot with an air rifle during an interview in 2006, but he carried on as if nothing had happened exclaiming; “it’s not a significant bullet”.
His documentary Lessons of Darkness could explain that calm response, filmed when he visited Kuwait after the Gulf War.
But the German Film Festival organisers say Herzog’s relaxed reaction to being shot is because of his history of near-death experiences.
“he has been to the prison, he has been ill in Africa, he has had all the tropical diseases you can imagine,” says Goethe Institute spokeswoman Bettine Senf.
It was the in tropics where Herzog filmed The White Diamond, about aeronautical engineer Graham Dorrington flying over Guyana in an airship.
In 1976 it was livestock auctioneering in Pennsylvania which captured Herzog’s interest. He was fascinated by champion auctioneer Steve Liptay’s gift of the gab – his practice method giving birth to the films name.
Twelve of Herzog’s films will screen at the Film Archive in Wellington over April.
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