Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) was a director and producer, actor and screenwriter who is regarded internationally as the leading German post-war director and one of the most significant exponents of New German Cinema. Despite the brevity of his creative career from 1969 to 1982, in addition to theatre productions and radio dramas, he successfully realised over 30 feature films and a range of tv productions, in which he developed his own unmistakable artistic signature through, among other things, the use of experimental camera techniques. Fassbinder rebelled against the commercial German cinema of the post-war era and was the first to dramatise numerous issues that were taboo at the time. Fassbinder’s recurrent motifs include themes such as human failings and sufferings, asymmetrical power dynamics in interpersonal relationships, dysfunctional communication, alienation and racism. Fassbinder’s film works received numerous awards, including the Golden Bear, the FIPRESCI Prize, the Adolf Grimme Prize and, on numerous occasions, the German Film Prize.