Fassbinder's first wife said the head of his foundation invented a marriage to him to control his estate, and 25 colleagues demanded she resign

Rainer Werner Fassbinder died in Munich on 10 June 1982, aged 37, leaving about 40 films and many plays. His copyrights passed to his mother, Liselotte Eder, and his father, Helmuth Fassbinder. Eder set up the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation in 1986, and his father gave his share of the rights to it for compensation. Eder chose Juliane Lorenz, Fassbinder's film editor and companion in his last years, to run the foundation, and on Eder's death in 1993 Lorenz became heir to the estate by Eder's will. Lorenz describes herself as his widow through a marriage in Florida, and the validity of that marriage is disputed. Ingrid Caven was legally married to Fassbinder from 1970 to 1972. In an interview with Die Zeit published on 24 May 2007, Caven said Lorenz had invented the marriage to gain access to the estate and was morally unfit to manage it. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus said Lorenz threatened to withhold films if Caven, composer Peer Raben and other former collaborators were invited to events. On 30 May 2007, 25 former colleagues, including Caven, Udo Kier, Ulli Lommel, Werner Schroeter and Günther Kaufmann, demanded that Lorenz step down and that the work go to a public body such as the Deutsche Kinemathek. They also objected that her restoration of Berlin Alexanderplatz brightened images Fassbinder had kept dark. No court ruling on the marriage was found^†. In 2026 Lorenz still heads the foundation^†.