Wim Wenders – King of the Road – The India Tour

Wim Wenders’ debut film – an existential crime noir inspired by the visual idiom of Hitchcock’s films. Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1972 Venice Film Festival.

The first of Wenders’ Road Trilogy in which he discovered the genre of the road movie.

The third film in Wenders’ Road Trilogy, “Kings of the Road” is about a friendship between two men: a film projector repairman who travels along the backroads of provincial West Germany near the border to the East in his truck, and a psychologist who is fleeing from his own past. Winner of  the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Hugo as Best Film at the Chicago Film festival in 1976.

Wim Wenders’ adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game is considered a cult film. The cast of Wenders’ film includes not only the directors Dennis Hopper and Gérard Blain - many of the supporting roles of gangsters are also played by fellow directors, such as Hollywood legends Sam Fuller and Nicholas Ray. Winner of the German Critics Prize as well as winner of the German Film Prize in gold in two categories.

A film about the last months in the life of American director Nicholas Ray, who is probably best known for his cult film “Rebel Without a Cause”. Wenders and Ray got to know each other on the set of “The American Friend” and became friends. “Lightning Over Water” was made in just a few weeks at a time when Wenders was free from his studio film “Hammett”. Winner of the German Film Prize in Silver.

“Reverse Angle” was my first diary film. It is about “new wave music” (among others Jim Jarmusch’s Del Byzanteens), about straying in New York, about the editing process of “Hammett” in the presence of Francis Ford Coppola, about a novel by Emanuel Bove and about Edward Hopper. And somehow the whole thing was a reflection about filmmaking in Europe and America.” (quote Wim Wenders)

“Room 666” at the Hotel Martinez in Cannes. There was a single camera in the room and the question was on the table. My colleagues only had to turn on the tape recorder and the camera when they were ready to give their solitary answers.  Godard, Fassbinder, Spielberg, Antonioni, Herzog and other filmmakers gave response to the question: ‘Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?’ “
(quote Wim Wenders)

"The State of Things" is a highly personal film about filmmaking in Europe and America. It is about a film crew stranded at the most Western tip of Europe. After shooting the last images of the film, there is nothing left to do but wait. The director finally sets out for Los Angeles to search for the missing producer. Wenders’ parable on filmmaking has also been interpreted as his way of addressing the difficulties that he faced during the production of “Hammett”, his first film in the US. Winner of the Golden Lion at the 1982 Venice Film Festival.

Wim Wenders’ iconic Cannes winner from 1984, exquisitely photographed by Dutch master Robby Müller, is a powerful statement on self-discovery, loss, redemption and the unbreakable bonds of love. Outstanding performances by Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski, a masterful screenplay by Sam Shepard and Ry Cooder’s haunting soundtrack have contributed to “Paris, Texas’” cult film status and its spell, even 40 years later. Winner of the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 1984 and the BAFTA Award for Best Director in 1985.

The documentary is the director’s homage to the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu as Wim Wenders travels to Japan in search of the Tokyo seen in Ozu’s films. Winner of the Outstanding Film of the Year Award at the 1985 London Film Festival.

The film has achieved cult status all around the world and marked Wenders’ “homecoming” as it was his first German film after eight years in America. The main characters are guardian angels – benevolent, invisible beings in trench coats – who listen to the thoughts of mortals and attempt to comfort them. Winner of the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival 1987, as well as the German Film Prize in Gold and Best Film at the European Film Awards.

"Until the End of the World – Director’s Cut" is “the ultimate road movie,” a journey around the globe, a modern-day odyssey, and it certainly bears similarities to Homer’s saga. The film was shot in 1990 and takes place in what was then the near future, around the turn of the millennium. What most interests Wenders here is how humanity learns to deal with images - or becomes their victim. The character Eugene notes: “In the beginning was the word. What would happen if only the image remained in the end!?”

Wim Wenders’ webbed exploration of an image saturated Los Angeles is a thought­provoking analysis of human brutality. On entering this strangely meandering thriller, the viewer steps into a shady, multifaceted world, where the image does not act as evidence but instead leads one astray. “The End of Violence” is a cerebral and sobering examination of the all­consuming, dehumanising reign of images.

The music documentary became a cinematic sensation and an international success and was nominated for an Oscar. With a small film crew, Wim Wenders accompanied his old friend Ry Cooder, who had previously written the music for “Paris, Texas” and “The End of Violence”, on a trip to Havana. Wenders immersed himself in the world of Cuban music. Over the course of several months, he observed and accompanied the musicians - first at home in Havana and then, weeks later, in April 1998, on their trip to Amsterdam for the first public performance of the band (who had never played together outside a studio) and then, in July 1998, to their triumphal concert in New York’s Carnegie Hall. Winner of the European Film Award as Best Documentary.

Based on an idea by rock star Bono of U2, the film is a story about friendship and deception - and about the immeasurable power of unconditional love.  A group of freaks, outsiders and drifters live in a run-down hotel in downtown Los Angeles, in an area full of drug addicts and homeless people. Bono provided the concept for the film as well as the soundtrack. Winner of the Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival 2000.

Hollywood star Howard Spence has seen better days. After another night of debauchery, he flees the set of his latest Western, riding away into the open prairie like one of the heroes he so often portrayed. He takes the bus to see (for the first time in 30 years) his elderly mother in Nevada and proceeds to look up a former lover in Montana and the grown-up son he's never met.

Oscar-nominated “Pina” is a feature-length dance film in 3D with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009. Wim Wenders takes the audience on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension: straight onto the stage with the legendary ensemble and follows the dancers out of the theatre into the city and the surrounding areas of Wuppertal – the place, which for 35 years was the home and centre for Pina Bausch’s creativity. Winner of the German Film Prize as Best Documentary, as well as by the European Film Academy as Best Documentary.

In “Anselm”, Wim Wenders creates a portrait of Anselm Kiefer, one of the most innovative and important painters and sculptors of our time. Shot in 3D and 6K-resolution, the film presents a cinematic experience of the artist’s work which explores human existence and the cyclical nature of history, inspired by literature, poetry, philosophy, science, mythology and religion. For over two years, Wenders traced Kiefer’s path from his native Germany to his current home in France, connecting the stages of his life to the essential places of his career that spans more than five decades.