Wim Wenders, the director of Don`t come knocking
My first profession is being a “traveler”

Wim Wenders was born as Ernst Wilhelm Wenders in 1945 in Düsseldorf; as one of the most awarded and most intriguing European directors, he is today the Chairman of the European Film Academy. He has made his mark on the map of international film with his early works about post war German and the Americanization of German culture. From the very beginning his films possessed a particular ambiance, strong characters and mindful philosophic stances… The public of FEST has always valued high his work – The Lisbon Story, Buena Vista Social Club, Million Dollar Hotel, Soul of a Man... have but confirmed his reputation in our country.

In addition to his last film – When the Past Knocks on the Door – which we will have the opportunity to see within this year's program, we will also have the opportunity to take a look at the this great author's photographic exhibition. During his stay in Belgrade, Wenders shall hold lectures and discussion with our film students and eventually be the one to close this year's FEST.

WW : In Belgrade I will show a selection of photographs from this show that consisted originally of 55 photographs that I had selected from the thousands of images I had taken over the last 20 years. I take pictures ever since I'm a kid, but I have taking photography much more serious ever since I started to use a bigger negative, which was since 1982. Most of my pictures are landscapes. I'm a photographer of places rather than of people. In movies, I have to deal with human issues, stories, dramas, lives. In a film you are always imposing your vision as a director onto everything. (Unless, of course, you're making a documentary.) And you're always surrounded by a crew, and sometimes by a huge machinery of means. Many movies resemble, in fact, to a military operation. In photography, I can indulge in the opposite. I am alone. I don't even need an assistant. I carry my cameras and my equipment myself. In the Australian desert, for instance, I was always running around with my huge and heavy panoramic camera on my back. My Aboriginal guide could not understand that. He called me “fotojarra”, which means something like “the idiot with the camera”. I like being that idiot. I like paying homage to a place, and just stand there and try to listen to it. (Yes, sometimes I think of my camera more like of a recording instrument.) I record the place's story. You need patience to hear it sometimes. Places sometimes don't want to tell it right away. But they're eager, most of the time, to pass on their history, and their stories. I'm just the middle man, the “interpreter”. I don't try to add anything myself. In the contrary, I try to disappear and let the desert, the landscape, the houses, the roads speak by themselves. That's the reason why these pictures are printed rather big. (The panoramas are almost 5 meters long.) I want the viewer to stand there and be just impressed and exposed as I was myself when I stood in front of that place. In order to really by transposed to another place, it is good to be overwhelmed. Sometimes, size DOES matter…

Besides the photographs, your films are the example of the unique visual identity. What inspires you?

WW : I have learned everything from painting and from music. I owe much less to the history of cinema or of photography than to the history of art. For inspiration I travel (my first profession is being a “traveler”, that's what I write into the hotel registration) and I listen to music. Anytime. And as loud as possible. I'm also inspired by people. Well, not so much by “artists” or any other famous people, but mostly by people who do their work in order to help others. Doctors, nurses, priests, teachers…

What do you prefer more - film of photography?

WW : Impossible choice. I need to answer with: MUSIC!

What is the part of the photographs that misses in ! the films?

WW : Sometimes during the shooting, I wish I could just be alone with my actors. And very often I wish I could give the landscapes (or the cityscapes) more space in a film. All my films start with a desire to explore a certain place and to get to know it better. And out of this place comes a story and its characters. But then, when you actually make the film, those landscapes usually hav eto step into the background, and you have to give center stage to your characters and their stories. That's fine, of course. Movies are about people, after all. But still, I wish sometimes I could be as independent and self-reliant like I am as a photographer.

What do you think about nowdays films, and who are the young film directors that you prefer?

WW : That's a very general question. I guess I can say that I like to see documentaries a lot. Or fiction filmmaking that is somehow linked to documentaries, in the sense that I feel that the film is based in life, not in some fantasy. I hate it when the film starts and I know after ten minutes exactly what is going to happen. I cannot stand films that are made with certain recipes or formulas. I usually get up and leave. I feel that is a waste of my time. I prefer movies to really explore and investigate life. You can feel it if the filmmakers were involved in an industrial process or rather went on an adventure themselves.

Are you satisfied with new german cinema and directors?

WW : This is a very exciting time for German cinema. There are so many young directors who just come out with their first or second films, and some of them, I'm sure, are really extraordinarily talented. That was not the case for a long time. It felt to me that my generation (Fassbinder, Schlöndorff, Hauff, Herzog, to just name a few) had reinvented German Cinema, with a lot of verve and imagination, and then it had drowned again in mediocrity. Well, these days you can see a real comeback of inventive and well-made films. Even funny ones, and humor never seemed like such a great German virtue. I don't want to give you any names, because I'll forget a few, and then I will wake up in the middle of the night thinking: “Oh, how could I have forgotten to mention X or Y!”

You use to collaborate with Mr. Mel Gibson. What did you tell him after seeing his film The Passion Of The Christ ?

WW : At that time we weren't really friends anymore. And I must admit I did not like PASSION at all. I felt it was an utterly unchristian film, rather some sort of perverted Spartacus movie. So I never talked with Mel about his film. We had a good time, though, when we were shooting MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL. Mel is a great actor, and he proved that, as far as I'm concerned. He was fabulous as crazy “Skinner” in that film.