Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 epic adventure-drama film written, produced, and directed by Werner Herzog. The film stars Klaus Kinski as Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irish would-be rubber baron known in Peru as "Fitzcarraldo", who is determined to transport a steamship over a mountain in the Amazon rainforest and thereby access a rich rubber territory, with the ultimate goal of using the wealth to build an opera house in the area. The character was inspired by Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald, who once had a disassembled steamboat transported over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald by natives.