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7 unusual facts about Rainer Werner Fassbinder


1954 FIFA World Cup

The final scene of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film The Marriage of Maria Braun takes place during the finals of the 1954 World Cup; in the scene's background, the sports announcer is celebrating West Germany's victory and shouting "Deutschland ist wieder was!" (Germany is something again); the film uses this as the symbol of Germany's recovery from the ravages of the Second World War.

Daniel F. Galouye

Between 1961 and 1973, Galouye wrote five novels, notably Simulacron Three, basis of the movie The Thirteenth Floor (1999) and the German TV miniseries, Welt am Draht (1973) (directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder).

Deutscher Filmpreis

Since 1999 the award has been a statuette of a woman known as the Lola, a reference to Marlene Dietrich's role in Der blaue Engel and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film Lola.

Eva Mattes

Mattes was featured in four films directed by director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Wildwechsel, Effi Briest and In a Year of 13 Moons).

Margarethe von Trotta

In her early career, von Trotta was an actress, appearing in notable films of directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff.

Marie-Luise Marjan

She was the heroine in Wolfgang Petersen's drama Smog and has also played in films by Werner Schroeter (Palermo oder Wolfsburg, Tag der Idioten) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Berlin Alexanderplatz).

Two Grey Rooms

Lyrical inspiration escaped the songwriter until 1989, when she encountered the story of New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who, amid the repression of Germany’s antigay Paragraph 175 laws, was left broken-hearted by a male lover in his youth.


All That Heaven Allows

All That Heaven Allows was the inspiration for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) in which a mature woman falls in love with an Arab man.

Irm Hermann

Hermann became a publishing clerk after finishing school and worked as a secretary for ADAC when she met Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1966, who convinced her to quit her job to work with him, despite her lack of formal training as an actor.

Niko von Glasow

The founder and Artistic Director of Palladio Film, von Glasow began his training with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and then worked for a number of film directors including Georg Stefan Troller, Hellmuth Costard, Alexander Kluge, Peter Zadek and Jean-Jacques Annaud before going on to study film at New York University and at the National Film School in Łódź, Poland.

Tony Holiday

In 2000, Tony Holiday's single "Tanze Samba mit Mir" was prominently featured in the Teddy Award-winning François Ozon directed film Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes (Water Drops on Burning Rocks), an adaptation of the play Tropfen auf heisse Steine by German filmmaker and dramatist Rainer Werner Fassbinder.


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