Wim Wenders Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Ed Meza @edmezavar German cinema is in Cannes with new works by Wim Wenders and films that explore Nazi propaganda, gender identity, economic crisis, romance, betrayal and fast cars. In addition to domestic films, a dozen German co-productions are screening in this year’s Cannes Film Festival lineup, including major works from the likes of Wes Anderson, Aki Kaurismäki and Jessica Hausner. Wenders is in Cannes with “Perfect Days,” which is vying for the Palme d’Or, and the documentary “Anselm” in Special Screenings. “Perfect Days” tells the story of a Tokyo janitor (Kôji Yakusho) who seems very content with his simple life, structured routines and passion for music, books and photography. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past. The Japanese-German co-production is sold by the Match Factory.

Cannes Film Festival features an unusually robust selection of documentaries, two in the Main Competition alone, where nonfiction films almost never appear. And if the ones that have screened in the festival’s first three days have anything in common, it’s scale.

Catherine Bray When audiences consider 3D as a medium, the abiding image seems to be of items popping out from the screen — a limb here in “Jaws 3D,” a dildo there in “Jackass 3D” — and perhaps that is indeed how most filmmakers have used the medium. Not enough directors have capitalized on the ability of 3D to convey a sense of physical depth; fewer still have seized on the possibility of adding philosophical depth. Thank goodness, then, for Wim Wenders. The first of two new films by the German veteran in this year’s Cannes official selection, “Anselm” is a tour de force 3D 6K portrait of the artist Anselm Kiefer, both rich in ideas and breathtaking in technical execution. Though undoubtedly a powerful confrontation with some of the biggest themes art can tackle — mortality, permanence, being, nothingness, all the hits — “Anselm” remains an accessible experience, partly because of its manageable 93-minute runtime and partly because of its endlessly engaging imagery. There’s no reason any reasonably curious audience shouldn’t be able to switch on to its considerable pleasures. 

Though he is still mostly known for his lyrical, America-set road movie Paris, Texas, which won the Palme d’Or in 1984, Germany’s Wim Wenders does most of his best work when he’s back on home turf. The Berlin Wall, for example, provided the backdrop for his 1987 masterpiece Wings of Desire, in which philosophical angels roamed a divided city that was still trying to reckon with the shame of the Second World War. His new documentary, Anselm, is ostensibly the biography of a fellow artist, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to read it as a veiled autobiography, in that its subject isn’t so much a person as the way that life experience and intelligence combine to create art.

Wim Wenders could be the Bob Dylan of European cinema: always around, always the same, always different. Sometimes he’ll arrive in Cannes with a documentary, like 2018’s Pope Francis: A Man of His Word, and sometimes he’ll come with a work of fiction, like his timeless 1984 Palme d’Or winner Paris, Texas. This year, he’s coming with one of each: Anselm, a 3D portrait of artist Anselm Kiefer, and Perfect Days, the story of a Tokyo toilet cleaner. Ironically, Wenders thought he’d have more time on his hands after the pandemic and moving on from his role at the European Film Academy. How wrong he was…

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety has been given access to an exclusive clip from “Anselm,” the 3D documentary from the three-time Academy Award nominated director Wim Wenders. The film will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as a Special Screening. HanWay Films is handling world sales. It will be released by Les Films du Losange in France and DCM in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sales agency The Match Factory is launching the trailer (below) of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in Competition. This gentle tragicomedy is the fourth part of Kaurismäki’s working-class quartet, following “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel” and “The Match Factory Girl,” which The Match Factory, the company, is named after. The film tells the story of two lonely people (played by Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night. They then try to re-find each other: the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path toward this goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness.

Brie Larson, Paul Dano and Julia Ducournau are among the eight people chosen to complete the main competition jury at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Cannes organizers announced Thursday morning in Paris.Swedish director Ruben Ostlund, who won the Palme d’Or last year for “Triangle of Sadness,” was previously announced as president of the jury. The presence of Ducournau, who won the top award for “Titane” in 2021, means that the last two Palme winners will be part of the deliberations to determine who succeeds them this year.Other jurors will be Moroccan writer-director Maryam Touzani, who was in Cannes last year with “The Blue Caftan”; French actor Denis Menochet, who recently appeared in Ari Aster’s “Beau Is Afraid”; Zambian/British writer-director Rungano Nyoni, whose “I’m Not a Witch” premiered in Cannes; Afghan novelist and writer-director Atiq Rahimi, whose film work often adapts his own bestselling books; and Argentinian writer-director Damian Szifron, who landed an Oscar nomination for his 2014 Cannes film “Wild Tales.”The jury’s 5-to-4 split between men and women is typical for Cannes in recent years.

Puma Blue is the alias of Jacob Allen, a London-born artist who now lives in Atlanta. For the past half decade or so he has created a lane of jazz-inflected late night comfort music. Across early EPs Swum Baby and 2018's Blood Loss, his music has been a nook to clamber into, shutting the rest of the world out as you enter.

EXCLUSIVE: Details are emerging about Wim Wenders’ 3D documentary Anselm, which will gets its world premiere as a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

EXCLUSIVE: The Match Factory will be handling world sales on Wim Wenders’ Japan-set Cannes Competition entry Perfect Days.

Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux unveiled the bulk of the Official Selection for the 76th edition of the festival at a packed press conference in Paris on Thursday morning.

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Ashley Avis (Black Beauty) has been tapped to write and direct the romance City of Angels, based on Wim Wenders’ 1987 classic City of Angels, for Warner Bros, Perez Pictures and Atlas Entertainment.

In total, Cannes Film Festival General Delegate Thierry Frémaux today announced 52 titles that will debut at the 76th edition which runs May 16-27 on the Riviera, and which he dedicated to the late producer and Telluride co-founder Tom Luddy. It’s set up to be yet another starry affair – though to outdo last year’s Top Gun: Maverick screening replete with French fighter jets buzzing the Palais would be a real feat.

Pope Francis, only a few days after leaving the hospital, is presiding over religious observances during the holiest week in the Roman Catholic faith. As part of Good Friday services today, he took part in a celebration of the Passion of the Lord at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. 

CPH:DOX, the international nonfiction film festival in Copenhagen, isn’t shy about stating its ambitions.

Lise Pedersen “A Sense of Place,” a collection of six short films by young Iranian directors, had its world premiere this week at Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX. The films are inspired by Wim Wenders’ eponymous 2005 book, and the Oscar nominated director – best known for “Paris, Texas,” “Wings of Desire,” “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Pina” – served as the project’s “godfather,” he explained at the festival. Curated by Iranian producer Afsun Moshiry in collaboration with The Wim Wenders’ Foundation, which supports young directors and innovative filmmaking, the anthology takes viewers on a journey that starts in Iran, travels to the country’s southern border, onto a plane to Germany, and ends up in France, where two of the films are shot.

Whenever the Iranian regime feels threatened by public protest its reflex is to go after two groups: demonstrators, most assuredly, but also artists – especially filmmakers.

Because a list is never done and because we were inspired to dig that bit further, we have a few more updates on potential Cannes contenders this year.

CPH: DOX Sets 2023 Main CompetitionThe Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, affectionately known as CPH: DOX, has set the full lineup for its 2023 edition. This year, the festival will screen more than 200 new documentaries, with over 100 world premieres – the largest number at CPH: DOX. Christoffer Guldbrandsen’s long-awaited film A Storm Foretold about Donald Trump’s former adviser Roger Stone will debut at the fest alongside a new doc by One Child Nation director Lynn Zhang. This year CPH: DOX also celebrates 20 years. Guests set to visit include Wim Wenders, Joan Baez, Nathan Fielder, and Jeremy Deller. You can check out the full lineup here.

Lise Pedersen The Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival, also known as CPH:DOX, has unveiled the full program of its 20th edition, which includes 200 new films, more than half of which are world premieres, sealing CPH:DOX’s reputation as one of the leading events of its kind in Europe. For the first time, all 13 films competing for the top Dox:Award are world premieres. These include “A Storm Foretold,” the long-awaited doc on Donald Trump’s former adviser Roger Stone by Danish political journalist Christopher Guldbrandsen; established filmmaker Margreth Olin’s highly anticipated epic film “Songs of the Earth”; “A Tiger in Paradise,” a surreal journey into Swedish singer José González’ inner world by Ruben Östlund’s regular creative partners Mikel Cee Karlsson and Erik Hemmendorff; and “Total Trust” by Jialing Zhang (“One Child Nation”), described as “the first major film about the Chinese surveillance state (…) – a disturbing tale of technology, (self-) censorship and abuse of power in the 21st century.”

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an empowered live video message to attendees of the opening night of the 73rd edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, urging filmmakers and culture “not to remain silent” when it comes to global politics as his country approaches a year since the Russian invasion.

The Berlin Film Festival today unveiled the titles selected for its retrospective section chosen by a collection of international directors and actors, including Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Nadine Labaki, and Tilda Swinton.

Avatar: The Way of Water‘s mega-publicized opening has brought movies back into the conversation, but movie-makers seem to have been lost in the mist. James Cameron’s persona is ablaze across the media but, by contrast, the very personal work of Sam Mendes, James Gray and even Steven Spielberg has done a fade-out in recent weeks.

This year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the 16 films selected for its flagship Tiger Competition. Scroll down for the full list.

It’s been eight years since Italy’s key film and TV market MIA kicked off in Rome and each year its popular co-production market and pitching forum seems to go from strength to strength.

Christopher Vourlias One year before its upcoming premiere in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section, Polish director Damian Kocur’s feature debut “Bread and Salt” screened for a select audience of industry tastemakers in Wrocław, Poland. In 2019, Jan Komasa’s “Corpus Christi” played in the same showcase for upcoming Polish films before launching its campaign for best international feature ahead of the 92nd Academy Awards. It’s an indication of the growing muscle of Wrocław’s New Horizons Film Festival and its industry arm, Polish Days, that producers, festival programmers, sales agents and distributors from around the globe make the summer trek to the historic university city, with its Gothic and Baroque architectural marvels situated on the Oder River.

‘The Magic Flute’ To World Premiere At Zurich, First Image Of Jack Wolfe In Lead Role Released Florian Sigl’s contemporary reimagining of Mozart’s opera classic The Magic Flute, which is executive produced by Roland Emmerich, will make its world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival (Sept 22 to Oct 2) as part of its music-themed Sounds sidebar. The production has released a first image of Shadow And Bone star Jack Wolfe in the lead role of a 17-year-old boy who is sent from London to Austrian Alps on a singing scholarship, to coincide with the announcement. Other highlights of the section include the Swiss premiere of drama Taurus starring Machine Gun Kelly. The US rapping star is due to attend a gala screening of the film, which originally world premiered at the Berlinale. Further world premieres in the sidebar include bio-doc about Irmin Schmidt, who shot to stardom with the Cologne band Can and composed the music for many of Wim Wenders’ films.

Charles S. Cohen’s Cohen Media Group, which owns the Landmark Theatres chain of art-houses, has acquired HanWay Films, the U.K.-based international film sales giant founded by Jeremy Thomas and long run by his partner Peter Watson.