Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982) was a German director, screenwriter, and actor, and one of the most prolific and influential figures of the New German Cinema. After working in Munich's experimental theatre scene in the late 1960s, he transferred his collaborative ensemble methods to film, completing more than forty features before his death at thirty-seven. His work fused Brechtian distancing with the visual textures of Hollywood melodrama, examining postwar German guilt, sexual politics, and the violence of ordinary social life. His acclaimed films include The Marriage of Maria Braun, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Fox and His Friends, and the fifteen-hour television epic Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Films in the catalogue