Werner Herzog February 20, 2009

Requiem for a Dying Planet
Discussion and Film Concert

UCLA Live Exclusive

One of cinema’s most visionary, enigmatic and controversial directors, German film auteur Werner Herzog creates extreme, larger than life narratives that often blur the boundaries of reality and fiction. His eccentric, over-the-top characters –from actor Klaus Kinski’s maniacal conquistador in the 1972 classic Aguirre, the Wrath of God to the doomed “grizzly bear expert” in the 2005 documentary Grizzly Man—are often quixotic outsiders who test the limits of humanity with ill-advised hubris.

Following a fascinating discussion with Herzog moderated by Paul Höldengraber, director of public programs at the New York Public Library, this extraordinary evening will conclude with a performance of the cine-concert Requiem for a Dying Planet. This unique collaboration between Herzog, Dutch cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger, Senegalese singer and instrumentalist Mola Sylla and the Sardinian shepherd choir Cuncordu e Tenore de Orosei is an assemblage of imagery and sound, featuring Herzog’s documentaries, The Wild Blue Yonder and The White Diamonds set to an original live score.