2025 | Historic Berlinale Debuts

Signs of Life (Lebenszeichen) - Werner Herzog 1968

Athina Zacharpoulou as Nora and Peter Brogle as Stroszek in Herzogs Signs of Life

Werner Herzog is one of the most visionary directors in German and international cinema. In 1968, the auteur filmmaker enjoys an early success at the Berlinale with Signs of Life, which will have a lasting impact on his career. Herzog’s feature film debut, presented in the Competition, tells the story of the German soldier Stroszek who is stationed on a remote Greek island at the end of World War II and who, tormented by the heat and isolation, is in danger of losing his mind. With impressive precision, the film addresses the collapse of the human psyche under extreme conditions while also providing space for a poetic contemplation of nature and transience.

Signs of Life wins Herzog the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize of the Jury. His brilliant debut establishes the foundation for his unmistakable idiosyncratic style: the combination of documentary with the fictional, an existentialist narrative form and a fascination for outsiders and people pushed to breaking point. With long, hypnotic shots and meditative imagery, Herzog originates an artistic signature that characterises his films to this day and gives them a special intensity.

Peter Brogle as Stoszek in Signs of Life

The success of Signs of Life at the Berlinale is a decisive impetus and paves the way for Herzog’s further career. It strengthens his reputation as an unconventional filmmaker unafraid to push narrative and aesthetic boundaries. In the following decades, Herzog creates numerous masterpieces, including the visually stunning epic Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), the compelling parable Fitzcarraldo (1982) and the poignant documentary Grizzly Man (2005). He often works with eccentric leading actors such as Klaus Kinski – who plays the leading role in Herzog’s 1979 Competition entry Nosferatu the Vampyre – whose destructive personalities additionally shape the director’s films.

Alongside his fiction films, Herzog also makes ground-breaking documentaries in which he explores nature and human existence in all its extremes. With films such as The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974) and Encounters at the End of the World (2007), he demonstrates his unique ability to combine beauty and menace in a single scene. In 2011, Cave of Forgotten Dreams is presented as a special screening in the Competition; a year later, Herzog’s work features in Berlinale Special with Death Row.

Jury President Werner Herzog at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival

Over the course of his career, the director continues to return to the Berlinale in various roles: in 2010, he shapes the festival with his extraordinary perspective as Jury President. Five years later, he is again invited to the Competition with the biographical film Queen of the Desert (2015). His long-standing connection with the Berlinale not only underlines his significance for German and international cinema but also his continuing importance as a source of inspiration for a new generation of filmmakers. To this day, Werner Herzog remains a tireless explorer of the limits of human experience – and a visionary storyteller.

More on Werner Herzog can be found in the archive