Queen of the Desert has World Premiere on Berlinale see update on our main site

Werner Herzog`s anticipated movie will have its world premiere on the prestigious film festival

in Berlin.the festival runs from 05-15 February 2015

source damian-lewis.com

see full news and update on  

http://www.damian-lewis.com/

Queen of the Desert

Queen of the Desert is an upcoming epic biographical drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and is based on the life of British traveller, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer and political officer Gertrude Bell.^[5][6] The film stars Nicole Kidman,James Franco, Damian Lewis and Robert Pattinson

Production began for film in December 2013.^[1] Raslan, one of the producers of the film, said, "It is great to be working again on this epic story, as Ms. Bell has been called the female Lawrence of Arabia."^[6] Kidman, talking about her role, said, "She's the female Lawrence of Arabia. She was English, and basically defined the borders between Iraq and Jordan that exist today, borders that she negotiated between Churchill and different Arab leaders. She went out to the desert with the Bedouin and all the different tribes that were feuding at the turn of the 19th century."

Pattinson talking about portraying T. E. Lawrence, said that "It’s sort of close to the real guy, it’s certainly not [the film] Lawrence of Arabia-like, at the same time the guy was really small and I’m not physically kind of right for the part, but I think I have quite a good little handle of who he is. After I got cast I started researching and there are certain things you can’t do as I’m just not physically the same so I had to invent it a little bit, and it’s a small part as well. The film’s about Gertrude Bell, it’s really not about making Lawrence of Arabia."^[

Lewis grew a mustache for his role in the film; in November 2013 he said, "I'm actually going to do a film with Werner Herzog just after Christmas, and [with] Nicole Kidman, and he [his character] is an Edwardian German. Takes place in the First World War and he has an amazing, kind of handlebar moustache ... so I started early to try just to try and get there."

A major portion of the filming took place in Morocco. Fifty actors (apart from main cast), more than 1,500 extras and 65 technicians, all Moroccan, participated.

Filming began on 20 December, 2013. Herzog shot background scenes and establishing shots without the principal cast in Merzouga,Morocco and Petra, Jordan.^{[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]} Principal photography with the main cast started in Merzouga on 13 January, 2014.^[28][29]Filming also took place at Marrakesh and Arfoud and continued till 26 February, 2014, in Ouarzazate, Morocco.^[19][30][31] After Morocco, filming moved to London^[32] and finished on 6 March, 2014.

Sabrina on Werner Herzog

I remember when I heard the first rumour that Damian Lewis might be play Charles Doughty Wiley in the new Werner Herzog film I smiled my biggest smile.

I am German and Werner Herzog is without doubt the biggest and most artistic director we have.

That doesn’t mean he is never in discussion or adored all day, he is for sure controversial character and special in his ways for making a movie but for over forty Herzog is one of the best director in Germany and worldwide. 

copyright bill zelmann

Werner Herzog Stipetić (German: [ˈʋɛɐ̯nɐ ˈhɛɐ̯tsoːk ˈstɪpɛtɪt͡ʃ]; born 5 September 1942), known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, author, actor and opera director.
Herzog is considered one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Schröter, and Wim Wenders. Herzog's films often feature heroes with impossible dreams,^[1] people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who are in conflict with nature.^[2] French filmmaker François Truffaut once called Herzog "the most important film director alive."^[3] American film critic Roger Ebert said that Herzog "has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular."^[4]

Besides using professional actors—German, American and otherwise—Herzog is known for using people from the locality in which he is shooting. Especially in his documentaries, he uses locals to benefit what he calls "ecstatic truth." He uses footage of the non-actors both playing roles and being themselves.
Herzog and his films have been nominated for and won many awards. His first major award was the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize of the Jury for his first feature film Signs of Life^[11] (Nosferatu the Vampyre was also nominated for Golden Bear in 1979). Most notably, Herzog won the best director award for Fitzcarraldo at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. In 1975, his movie The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser won The Special Jury Prize (also known as the 'Silver Palm') at the Cannes Festival. Other films directed by Herzog nominated for Golden Palm are: Woyzeck and Where the Green Ants Dream.

His films were nominated at many other important festivals around the world: César Awards (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), Emmy Awards (Little Dieter Needs to Fly), European Film Awards (My Best Fiend) and Venice Film Festival (Scream of Stone and The Wild Blue Yonder).
In 1987, Herzog and his half-brother Lucki Stipetić won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Producing for the film Cobra Verde.^[12] In 2002 he won the Dragon of Dragons Honorary Award during Kraków Film Festival in Kraków.

Herzog was honored at the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival, receiving the 2006 Film Society Directing Award.^[13] Four of his films have been shown at the San Francisco International Film Festival: Wodaabe - Herdsmen of the Sun in 1990, Bells from the Deep in 1993, Lessons of Darkness in 1993, and The Wild Blue Yonder in 2006. Herzog's April 2007 appearance at the Ebertfest in Champaign, Illinois earned him the Golden Thumb Award, and an engraved glockenspiel given to him by a young film maker inspired by his films. Grizzly Man, directed by Herzog, won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Encounters at the End of the World won the award for Best Documentary at the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature, Herzog's first nomination.

Herzog was the president of the jury at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival.^[17][18][19] He was the chief guest of the 15th International Film Festival of Kerala in December 2010.^{[citation needed]}

Herzog also lent his voice to the animated television program The Boondocks in the third season premiere episode "It's a Black President, Huey Freeman" in which he played himself filming a documentary about the series' cast of characters and their actions during the 2008 election of Barack Obama. He also played Walter Hotenhoffer (formerly known as Augustus Gloop) in the Simpsons episode The Scorpion's Tale which aired in March 2011.
Herzog completed a documentary called Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 2010, which shows his journey into the Chauvet Cave in France. 

Although generally skeptical of 3-D film as a format,^[20] Herzog premiered the film at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival in 3-D and had its European premiere at the 2011 Berlinale.
Also in 2010, Herzog's documentary Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, which portrays the life of fur trappers from the Siberian part of the Taiga, had its premiere at the 2010 Telluride Film Festival.
In 2012, it was announced that Herzog would be directing a film adaptation of the 2003 novel Vernon God Little.^[21]
In 2011 Herzog competed with Ridley Scott for making a film based around the life of explorer Gertrude Bell.^[22] In 2012, it was confirmed that Herzog would start production on his long-in-development project in March 2013 in Morocco with Naomi Watts to play Gertrude Bell along with Robert Pattinson to play T. E. Lawrence and Jude Law to play Henry Cadogan.^[23] Herzog also gained attention in 2013 when he released a short Public Service Announcement-style documentary, It Can Wait, demonstrating the danger of texting while driving and financed by AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

In 2012, Herzog lent his voice to the animated series Metalocalypse as the high holy priest of the Church of the Black Klok, Ishnifus Meaddle.

On October 21, 2013, it was announced that Herzog had secured Nicole Kidman to replace Watts for the role of Gertrude Bell in his film Queen of the Desert, with Damian Lewis playing Lt. Col. Charles Doughty-Wylie. Production was slated to begin in December 2013.^[24]

Unforgettable for Germany is his "hate love" relationship with the German actor Klaus Kinski, he was a brilliant actor but to call him a difficult character would be decrease a profile every

analyst would face a lifetime task because Kinski was a bit a monster with a genius talent.

Klaus Kinski (born Klaus Gunther Nakszynski;^[1] 18 October 1926 – 23 November 1991) was a German actor.^[2][3][4][5] He appeared in more than 130 films, and is remembered as a leading role actor in the films of Werner Herzog, including: Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Woyzeck (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Cobra Verde (1987). He was considered a "divisive and controversial figure in Germany. His violent outbursts on set—famously captured on film in Herzog's documentary 'My Best Fiend'—are the stuff of legend."^[6]
He is the father of Pola, Nastassja, and Nikolai Kinski, born of three different marriages. They have all become actors and have worked in Germany and the United States, primarily in film and TV.

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I first saw him when I was a little kid in the here in Germany very popluar Edgar Wallace movies. Kinski was always the bad guy but a loving and caring man hadn’t really suit him:-)

I watched the all the movies secretly with my Dad when Mum and Grandma were not at home because the movies were actually a bit scary and not really the right thing for a little girl and even my Daddy was a very strict person the evenings  with him and Edgar Wallace were unforgettable. We were sitting next to each other, dimmed the light and he was amused because I was scary before the film began and  with every scene I “climbed” a bit more into dad and pillows but loved every second. It was a kind of father daughter secret and it was like a treasure for me.

So my first moments with Klaus Kinski were actually very special but growing up and reading a few biographies of him it more and more painted a picture from a quite strange person but a great talent

He was a full blood actor and lived his life to the fullest.

Well known and wonderful to watch is Herzogs documentary about the work and relationship with Klaus Kinski…see here:  

So I grew up with Werner Herzogs work and was immensely happy when it finally was confirmed that Damian Lewis take part in Queen of the Desert but I was not the only one who was a bit over the moon see here: 

"Just had lunch with Werner Herzog in Casablanca. Strange sentence to write...."

 source:damian lewis twitter

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