Christoph Schlingensief, 1960–2010

Christoph Schlingensief, the German director of stage and film, actor and artist, has died aged 49. Schlingensief, who was due to represent Germany at the Venice Art Biennale next year, had suffered from lung cancer for over two years. Always controversial, Schlingensief particularly enraged the conservative media with his 2004 production of Wagner's Parsifal in which he used an image of a rotting hare as the opera's backdrop.