Werner Herzog receives Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at Venice Film Festival

Werner Herzog received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, presented by Francis Ford Coppola. The 81-year-old German filmmaker, born in 1942 in an isolated Bavarian valley, did not see a film until age 11. Accepting the award, Herzog stated he is not finished: he is currently shooting a film in Ireland, will soon produce an animated film from his novel 'The Twilight World', and will voice a character in Bong Joon-ho's next film. At the festival he presents 'Ghost Elephants'. Herzog has also created the installation 'Hearsay of the Soul' for the Whitney Museum Biennial and founded the Rogue Film School. Artistic director Alberto Barbera called him an 'heir of German Romanticism', noting his total involvement up to physical risk. Herzog's films include 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' (1972), which inspired Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' (1979), 'Fitzcarraldo' (1982), 'Nosferatu' (1979), 'Grizzly Man' (2005), and 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' (2010). He blurs documentary and fiction, stating 'facts are not always the truth'. Herzog has expressed a desire to go to space and send poems back to Earth, having applied to a Japanese mission. The Golden Lion is not a nostalgic tribute but an indication of a path: to keep looking, walking, and possibly sending poems from space.