Biography
Werner Penzel was born in Germany in 1950. In the 60s he starts playing music in various rock-bands and writes poetry, first published in R.D. Brinkmann's underground-magazine "Der Froehliche Tarzan", before turning to independent movie-making.
In the 70s he worked and lived with the Brazilian theatre company "Oficina" in Rio De Janeiro, accompanied the "Living Theatre" in Europe, studied at Munich Film Academy, traveled through South and Central America, North Africa, India, the USA and Japan, where he spent time practicing in the Zen-monasteries Eiheiji and Antaiji. After Vagabunden Karawane (198O), Pirates of Silence (1984), Adios al Odio (1986) and other movies. In 1987 he established the production company "CineNomad" together with Nicolas Humbert, a collaboration which results among other movies in two works for cinema Step Across the Border (1990) and Middle of the Moment (1995), the film-triptych Three Windows (1999), the chamber-film Why should I buy a bed when all that I want is sleep? (1999) and the jazz-film Brother Yusef (2005).
Since 1995 he also begins teaching - giving lectures, workshops and seminars at film-, media- and art-academies in Munich, Berlin, Zurich, Genever, Lausanne, Lugano. In 2006 he establishes "jourparjour company" in Estavayer-Le-Lac, Switzerland, together with Ayako Mogi, Res Balzli, Marion Neumann and Christoph Balmer to start "Laboratoire Village Nomade". In 2009 he moved to the island of Awaji-shima in Japan founding "nomadomura" together with Ayako Mogi and Misa Shimomura to continue movie-making, music and art, and kept working on cultural exchange and human research projects.
