Werner Schumann

London-based film and theatre director Werner Schumann, with Italian/German roots, has a diverse background in theatre and film direction. Schumann's early career involved directing classic plays in school, such as 'Antigone' by Sophocles, and founding a puppet theatre group with his brother in Brazil, where he grew up and studied theatre and film production. Schumann's early works were innovative and daring, combining theatre performances with audio-visual interaction in productions such as "The Bells Toll for the Jacobins" (Batem os Sinos para os Jacobinos), which he created in 1985. He continued to explore experimental live performance and filmmaking, directing the dance musical film "Labour" (Trabalho de Parto), with choreography and performance by Sergio Oliveira, based on a concept by artist Claudia Guimaraes, as part of a live performance project in Brazil in 1997. He also directed several short films, including "Pioneers of Cinema" (1995), which won the Golden Tatu for "Best Fiction" at the XXI International Bahia Film Festival. Schumann's notable feature films include "Sun in the Mist" (2007), which won the TVE Awards at the San Sebastian Film Festival, and "O Coro" (2010), which premiered at the prestigious Mar Del Plata Film Festival and earned him the "Best Director" Award at the 21st Ibero-American Cine Ceara Film Festival in Brazil. He also directed the drama-action-thriller "Absolution - A Hitman Story" (2015), distributed in several countries (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Vudu-Fandango). In 2022, Schumann directed "The Year of the Soul," a drama-comedy centered on a group of American expatriate friends living in Berlin, adapted from his own play, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video. He also directed "The Widow's Moon," an international drama-thriller set to premiere in the USA in 2023. Schumann is a member of Directors UK, the professional association for British film and television directors, and was a founding board member of the Directors Charitable Foundation in London formed by members of Directors UK, Stage Directors UK and the Directors Guild Trust in 2016. He is also part of Cannes' Producers Network.