Tribute to Wim Wenders
Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing

One of the best known directors of the New German Cinema, Wenders is often characterized as the “existentialist” of the movement. Stylistically, his films blend Hollywood forms and genres with
elements of counter-cinema. Thematically, his films attempt to disclose states of consciousness - loneliness, irresolution, anxiety - and explore the ambivalent impact of American culture on post-WWII German life.
“All my films,” Wenders claims, “have as their underlying current the Americanization of Germany.” No other German filmmaker has dealt more extensively or more obsessively with the American presence in the European unconscious. Wenders’s fascination with American culture began in his childhood. He grew up at a time when American culture provided a diversion for West Germans eager to forget their own past. Extremely shy and introspective as a teenager, Wenders planned to study for the priesthood, but this desire soon gave way to an interest in American music and American film.
After studying medicine and philosophy at the University of Freiburg and painting in Paris, Wenders enrolled in Munich’s film school, where he made several student films between 1967 and 1970. His first professional feature, THE GOALIES’S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK (1971), attracted considerable critical attention. The film is based on a novel by Peter Handke, a Wenders friend who would write WRONG MOVE (1975) and collaborate with Wenders on WINGS OF DESIRE (1988). After completing the trilogy of road movies ALICE IN THE CITIES (1974), WRONG MOVE (1975) and KINGS OF THE ROAD (1976) he came to America under contract to direct HAMMET for Francis Ford Coppola and stayed almost 30 years, making award-winning films, including PARIS TEXAS (1984), WINGS OF DESIRE (1987, filmed in Berlin), and its sequel FAR AWAY SO CLOSE.
Since he returned to Germany Wenders has made films in Europe from his base in Berlin, the latest,
PALERMO SHOOTING, will have its US Premiere at this festival.

WIM WENDERS IN CONVERSATION WITH GERD GEMÜNDEN
TUESDAY JANUARY 20 following the screening of PALERMO SHOOTING

Photography Donata Wenders

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY

2008
PALERMO SHOOTING
(Director/Screenplay)

2005
DON’T COME KNOCKING
(Director)

2004
LAND OF PLENTY
(Director)

2000
THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL
(Director/Producer)

1999
BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
(Director/Producer/Screenplay)

1987
WINGS OF DESIRE
(Director/Producer/Screenplay)

1982
HAMMET
(Director)

1976
KINGS OF THE ROAD
(Director/Screenplay)

1974
ALICE IN THE CITIES
(Director /Screenplay)

1973
THE SCARLET LETTER
(Director /Screenplay)
1972
THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY AT
THE PENALTY KICK
(Director /Screenplay)

1970
SUMMER IN THE CITY
(Director/Producer/Screenplay)

FESTIVAL SCREENINGS
KINGS OF THE ROAD
ONE WHO SET FORTH:
WIM WENDERS’ EARLY YEARS
PALERMO SHOOTING

Gerd Gemünden
Professor of German Studies and Film at Dartmouth College, has taught and published extensively on German cinema. His titles include The Cinema of Wim Wenders (1997), A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder’s American Film (2007) special issues of New German Critique on Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Film and Exile.