New German Cinema is a period in
German cinema which lasted from the late 1960s into the 1980s. It saw the emergence of a new generation of directors. Working with low budgets, and influenced by the
French New Wave, such directors as
Rainer Werner Fassbinder,
Werner Herzog,
Alexander Kluge,
Harun Farocki,
Volker Schlöndorff,
Helma Sanders-Brahms,
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg,
Margarethe von Trotta and
Wim Wenders made names for themselves and produced a number of 'small' motion pictures that caught the attention of
art house audiences, and enabled these directors (particularly Wenders and Schlöndorff) to create better-financed productions which were backed by the
big US studios.