Werner Herzog will serve as the keynote speaker at the seventh Film Independent Forum, FIND announced on Thursday.
The German-born director, whose 50-plus films include "Aguirre, the Wrath of God," "Grizzly Man" and the upcoming "Into the Abyss," will give a talk and answer questions from the audience at the opening of the three-day forum, which will take place on October 21-23 at the Directors Guild of America in West Hollywood.
In the press release announcing Herzog's participation, the filmmaker's bio is typically idiosyncratic:
"Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a remove mountain village in Bavaria and never saw any films, television, or telephones as a child. He started traveling on foot from the age of 14. He made his first phone call at the age of 17. During high school he worked the nightshift as a welder in a steel factory to produce this first films and made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19 …. "
Film Independent also announced panelists for the forum, which is presented by indieWIRE. Panelists include "Happy Endings" screenwriter Don Roos, "Food, Inc." producr Elise Pearlstein, "Jennifer's Body" director Karyn Kusama, "Play the Game" writer-director-producer Marc Fienberg, Leslie Fields-Cruz from the National Black Programming Consortium and Doug Jones from the Los Angeles Film Festival.
More panelists and additional information can be found at FilmIndependent.org.
