About

Werner Herzog’s Fata Morgana is a mesmerising visual poem. Borne from footage shot in and around the Sahara Desert, Herzog’s original intention was to craft a science-fiction film from the material, before he re-shaped it into a dystopian portrait of our own planet.

The film is split into three chapters – Creation, Paradise, and the Golden Age – with the incredible images accompanied by Germanic masses, folk ballads from Leonard Cohen, and readings from a Herzog-penned ersatz version of the Guatemalan holy text, The Popol Vuh.

The Italian term 'fata morgana' is used to describe a particular form of mirage in which distant objects are distorted and rearranged as light bends through layers of air at different temperatures. The results of this refraction can lead to beguiling, often unfathomable, images that sit above the horizon. Herzog captures some of these entrancing optical creations in the film, placing the very seams of reality on display.

Fata Morgana will screen from an imported 35mm print.