World Religion Wagner – looking for partners

World Religion Wagner won’t be a biographical film about Richard Wagner. It will be a cheeky documentary dedicated to the world’s fascination with the man.

Wagner is more than just music. Wagner is a social phenomenon, a question of belief, and the Bayreuth Festival is the world‘s most important mecca for the cult of Wagner. There are more biographies about Richard Wagner than about Jesus. But World Religion Wagner won’t be a biographical film about Richard Wagner. It won’t be a musicological analysis of his work. It will be a cheeky documentary dedicated solely to the world’s fascination with the man, and to the pursuit of an answer to the question: How did, to this day, such massive hype and such a cult following develop all over the world around this highly controversial artist, for whom there only seem to be either lovers or haters?

The film begins with the curtain falling on the last evening of the Bayreuth Festival, and it ends when the curtain is raised at the beginning of the next summer’s Festival. We show what has never been shown: a feature-length study of life in Bayreuth with Wagner. At the same time, we travel the world to meet protagonists and crazy Wagnerians from Abu Dhabi, China, Africa, Germany, France, Latvia and Italy.

English title WORLD RELIGION WAGNER
Genre Documentary
Recording location Abu Dhabi, China, Africa, Germany, France, Latvia and Italy
Production year 2019/2020
Duration 52 and 90 min.
Video format 4K
Production Company Kick Film GmbH
Coproduction Company Naxos
Coproducer ARD / arte
TV Director Axel Brüggemann
Author Toni Schmid
Producer Jörg Bundschuh
Distribution TV Naxos Audiovisual Division
Soloist PROTAGONISTS (PLANNED) Katharina Wagner, Eva Wagner-Pasquier, Christian Thielemann, Barrie Kosky, Yuval Sharon, Valery Gergiev, Waltraud Meier, Placido Domingo, Jonas Kaufmann, Stephen Gould, Catherine Foster, Piotr Beczala, Tomasz Konieczny, Michael Volle, Klaus Florian Vogt, Neo Rauch & Rosa Loy, Nike Wagner, Wu Jiatong