orig. Werner H. Stipetic
(b. Sept. 5, 1942, Munich, Ger.) German filmmaker.
He won two awards for his first feature film, Signs of Life (1967), which introduced the theme of a descent into madness that was to reappear in his later films, most powerfully in Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu (1979), and Fitzcarraldo (1982). He documented his tumultuous friendship with actor Klaus Kinski in the film My Best Fiend (1999). His surreal and exotic films were among the best of the highly praised postwar West German cinema.