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.