As a film critic who also serves as a festival programmer I sometimes find myself in awkward positions. Such was the case recently at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in October, where A Gray State screened, along with the film’s director Erik Nelson and its executive producer Werner Herzog in attendance. Though I’d seen the film on screener, I didn’t have a strong opinion about it one way or another (and as I was only helping out with the international features this year my indifference didn’t much matter).   Of course, asked to moderate the post-screening Q&A I jumped at the […]

“The sun dimmeth, the land sinketh, gusheth forth steam and gutting fire,” rasps Werner Herzog ominously, quoting Norse poetry from the Poetic Edda as bursts of lava erupt onto the screen in the trailer for his latest release, Into the Volcano (Netflix). The message is clear: the Underworld awaits. And your Teutonic guide is a veritable Stygian ferryman. So how do you market a madman? Or — more accurately — when? Herzog, the acclaimed septuagenarian director, first rose to prominence as part of the New German Cinema movement in the 1970s and quickly staked his claim in film’s firmament with […]

In Werner Herzog’s latest film, Into the Inferno, the renowned auteur delves into some of the world’s most active volcanoes. The documentary, which will open in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, and launch globally on Netflix on October 28, just got its first trailer (above). “It is a fire that wants to burst forth and it could not care less about what we are doing up here,” notes Herzog about volcanoes in the trailer. Maybe so, but viewers will be curious to see what Herzog and volcanologist and co-director Clive Oppenheimer discover on their journey to visit the world’s […]

“I have a lot of trolls and a lot of imposters. I’m on Facebook, but it’s not me. I’m on Twitter, but it’s not me,” says Werner Herzog in a recent installment of VICE Talks Films (above). Herzog is doing press rounds to discuss his latest documentary Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World, which is now in theaters, on Demand, on iTunes and Amazon Video. The film, which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, examines the past, present, and evolving future of the internet in Herzog’s signature voice.

Director Werner Herzog brings his German-accented, customary evocation of strange wonder to a dissection of Kanye West’s “Famous” video in this clip posted over at the Daily Beast. More than just a deconstructive joke, however, Herzog turns the viewing into an instructional take on why every filmmaker needs his or her main storyline and then a parallel story the audience creates for themselves. Says Herzog, “This is very good stuff. If Kanye West applies to my Rogue Film School,” I would invite him. Related: Werner Herzog discusses his new Rogue Film School Master Class.

A frequent and vocal opponent of film schools, the director Werner Herzog founded his own, the Rogue Film School, in 2009. He teaches students in weekend seminars held at varying locations around the world in what it feels like an oppositional practice to the standard four-year university programs. Now, Herzog has taken the Rogue Film School concept one step further by devising his own online program through MasterClass. The course is available online for $90 and offers 26 video lessons with accompanying exercises and course materials. I spoke to Herzog about the production of the class, his expectations for the course, […]

He’s taken on cave paintings, Siberian fur trappers, and an ill-fated bear enthusiast. Now, with his latest film, Werner Herzog tackles the internet. “The explosion of information technology on the internet has led to some of its greatest glories,” intones Werner Herzog in his signature Werner Herzog voiceover in the trailer for Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (above). The film, which premiered earlier this year at The Sundance Film Festival, examines the past, present and evolving future of the internet by interviewing cyberspace pioneers and prophets such as  PayPal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Internet protocol inventor Bob Kahn, […]

Traditional film school is overrated, according to Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Werner Herzog, who has signed on to teach an online filmmaking class. “You spend way too much time in film school. It costs way too much money. You can learn the essentials of filmmaking on your own within two weeks,” said Herzog in the (above) trailer for his class. The new class, which will focus on the art of both feature and documentary filmmaking, will be offered as part of the online education platform MasterClass. Pre-enrollment is open to everyone and the class will become available this summer. “Werner Herzog vibrantly and charismatically […]

“Detached, inhuman and unreal” — that’s how Sonia Kennebeck describes the act of killing via Predator drones. An emblem of American foreign policy in the Obama era, so-called unmanned aerial vehicles allow nations to monitor and assassinate their enemies from thousands of miles away. Kennebeck interviews the operators and survivors of drone warfare in National Bird, her whistle-blowing documentary executive produced by Errol Morris and Wim Wenders. Below, Kennebeck discusses the ethical dilemmas of drone warfare, drones as a cinematic tool and how she found her remarkable subjects. The film screens this week at the Tribeca Film Festival and has been picked up by FilmRise for distribution. Filmmaker: […]

The hype machine has gone well into overdrive on Manchester by the Sea, to the point that many not here but monitoring Twitter are already properly irritable/skeptical. I’ll keep it brief: now past the tribulations of Margaret‘s legal travails, attenuated release and masterpiece status (it’s true!), Kenneth Lonergan has made a very, very strong film. Margaret spun out the complications of a moment’s carelessness and tragedy in multiple directions — legally, personally, professionally — from a single starting point. Manchester processes twin strands of tragedy, both immediate and long-term. Immediate: surly drunk Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is yanked out of his Boston handyman routine by his brother’s sudden […]