Christoph Schlingensief

Christoph Maria Schlingensief (24 October 1960 – 21 August 2010) was a German theatre director, performance artist and filmmaker. Starting as an independent underground filmmaker, Schlingensief later staged productions for theatres and festivals, often accompanied by public controversies. In the final years before his death, he staged Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival and worked at several opera houses, establishing himself as a Regietheater artist. He posthumously won the Golden Lion for Germany in 2011 at the Venice Biennale for the best national pavilion, which was turned into an installative replica of the stage design for his autobiographical play "A Church of Fear VS. the Alien Within", alluding to his cancer illness.