He wanted to be an architect, musician, painter, doctor, philosopher, photographer, writer and priest. And in the end he became a film director because "it is a job that encompasses everything, which allows you to write, photograph, draw or build."
Win Wenders has done well in that profession that he chose after defoliating the many artistic specialties that were within his reach: “I was able to make movies right away, but if I had to moonlight and work nights to shoot movies, I wouldn't. I would have doubted”, he explained yesterday at a press conference that he offered within the framework of the BCN Film Fest, which has awarded him the 2023 honor award.
Wenders is delighted with the award and also with his stay in the Catalan capital, but "the greatest gift is that a good part of my cinema can be seen these days in Barcelona", because the festival has programmed 12 essential titles, among which stand out The American friend (1977), Heaven over Berlin (1987), Buena Vista Social Club (1999), The million-dollar hotel (2000) or Paris, Texas (1984), which has lent a frame with the image of Nastassja Kinski to illustrate the poster of this edition of the Barcelona contest.
The German filmmaker took advantage of his appearance before journalists to look back and remember Peter Handke and the late Sam Shepard with whom he wrote many of his four-handed scripts, because "writing is a very solitary task and I, who don't I like being alone, I find it much more stimulating to write with people”. Especially if it's people like Shepard who "had an explosive personality." “He was tall and thin, very intelligent and suddenly he would disappear to go participate in a rodeo. He acted in some of my movies and he was one of my best friends”.
Despite all those memories, at 77 years old, Wenders is not content with just looking back. The filmmaker still has a lot to do. For now, he will bring two films to the next Cannes festival. He says that he is "delighted" because "nobody knows anything about these films." Although something has already transpired.
Perfect Days, which will compete for the Palme d'Or, is a dramatic comedy starring Koji Yakusho, Min Tanaka and Arisa Nakano that tells the story of Hirayama, a Tokyo toilet cleaner whose life is revealed through his readings. , the music he listens to and the trees he photographs. The secret about Anselm (Das Rauschen der Zeit) has been kept better, which will be presented as a special projection, and which, according to the director revealed yesterday, is a documentary.
And after Cannes, Wenders will throw himself into "a great project that is already underway and that has a lot to do with the changes that the world has undergone." First there was 9/11, the fall of the Twin Towers, which Wenders photographed for posterity. And now the covid and confinement. As a result of these vicissitudes, "nothing will ever be what it was again, the good times of the past have disappeared and will not return, and the truth is already an endangered species."
For this reason, the German filmmaker intends to pursue "the search for the truth." He knows that developing this project will take him years, but he is very clear that "it will be about peace, because without peace there is no common good" and although the thing sounds very profound, Wenders also hopes that "it will be a very entertaining film for me". .
Without further ado, because for the German director “films are neither a product nor are they shot to be successful. Those are two lies that are often repeated. Cinema is culture, like Cervantes, and is part of the European tradition", declared the director, who defines himself as "an optimist, because otherwise I would not have dedicated myself to cinema, I don't know how Woody Allen manages". joked. And he concluded that this optimism makes him see with good prospects "the future of cinema and also that of society, because only optimists are capable of changing the world."
