Fitzcarraldo, a foreigner obsessed with building an opera house in his Peruvian town decides that to make his dream a reality he needs to make a killing in the rubber business, so he hatches an elaborate plan: with the help of his loyal crew and an indigenous tribe, Fitzcarraldo will journey up the rivers of the Amazon with his steamship, to realise his dreams.

Inspired by a true story and one of the most chaotic and dangerous productions in movie history (find out more in behind-the-scenes documentary Burden of Dreams), Fitzcarraldo is both a confessional self-portrait of Herzog the adventuring artist and a tale of obsessive madness, the violent arguments between Herzog and his star Klaus Kinski laid bare in the story as they attempt to actually recreate the feat of hauling a full size ship over a mountain.

Screening as part of Behind the Scenes: Herzog & Coppola. Celebrating the 4K restorations of two seminal ‘behind-the-scenes’ filmmaking documentaries, Showroom is proud to present both films alongside their subjects for an unmissable pair of double bills.

Click here to book tickets for Burden of Dreams and read more about the other films in the season.

Director Werner Herzog
Year 1982
Duration 3h
Language German with English Subtitles
Cast Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, Jose Lewgoy