Francis Ford Coppola praised Werner Herzog as an “encyclopaedia” in awarding him the honorary Golden Lion at the opening of the 2025 Venice Film Festival.

“He not only can fill the pages of an encyclopaedia, Werner is one,” said Coppola, in his first public appearance since he underwent a heart procedure in Rome this month. “If Werner has limits, I don’t know what they are. Werner’s life and his very existence sends a challenge to everyone out there: top me if you can. And all of us truly wonder if anyone ever will.

“Werner, I will eat my hat if anyone comes who can do it,” concluded Coppola, in a nod to 1980 short documentary Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe , in which the German filmmaker fulfilled a bet to Errol Morris to eat his shoe if Morris completed Gates of Heaven .

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