Its world premiere of the Film took place in September 2018. Now the cinematic portrait of Werner Herzog about the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is running in the cinemas in the United States.
Two men sit opposite one another: Mikhail Gorbachev, the last head of state of the former Soviet Union, now 88 years old. And Werner Herzog, the famous German Director and producer, 76 years of age. Three times visited the Duke, together with his film team, Mikhail Gorbachow in the vicinity of Moscow. The two men are holding intensive talks, it’s politics and history, to Glasnost and Perestroika, and in between, is also Private.
Duke and Gorbachow seem to understand well. “I think he immediately sensed that I had a similar Childhood as he did. We have understood very quickly, very deeply,” says Duke of his encounter in the autumn in an Interview with the mitteldeutsche Rundfunk. He himself had become “without running water and rarely electricity”. “We only had an outhouse outside of the house. And we are with a bucket to the well and brought water into the house. And he grew up similar to,” Herzog said.
Werner Herzog, who grew up in the Bavarian province and today lives in the USA, brought the film to make itself. Today, he is next to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and Volker Schlöndorff is one of the most famous Directors in the Generation of New German cinema.
“Meeting Gorbachev” had its world premiere on 1. September 2019 at the Telluride Film Festival in the Californian city of Colorado, and delivery shortly thereafter, the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada. In Germany, Meeting Gorbachev was “see” in October 2018 as the opening film of the film festival, DOK Leipzig.