Euronews Culture speaks to celebrated German director Wim Wenders on how removing funding from cultural institutions never pays off, and how the "beautiful idea" of Europe needs to be defended against nationalism.
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00:00Mr. Vendors, thank you so much. We spoke to you in Lyon when you won the Prix Lumière last year,
00:05and this year you're receiving the European Lifetime Achievement Award.
00:08What does this award mean to you?
00:10This is quite special because it's for my family. I've been involved with the European
00:18Film Academy since its beginning for all its 36 years and 24 years as their president, so
00:25I feel it's family. Normally, you don't get an award from your family. They just pat you on
00:32the shoulder and say, well done, boy, and then they go. So it's very special for me.
00:37Wonderful. And yes, as president, if I remember from 1996 to 2020,
00:43you're ideally placed to have contributed but also seen the evolution of European cinema over
00:49the years. Do you think it's evolving in the right way?
00:53We were evolving nicely. And then the pandemic happened and that threw a bone into the system
01:06because it diverted a whole lot of people away from theaters and from movies to streaming.
01:15And they grew much more and faster than they ever expected. And I mean, it was almost inevitable
01:22that audiences were slowly going over to streaming services, but this happened abruptly.
01:30And it was a pretty hard blow to independent and smaller kinds of cinemas than the big
01:37blockbusters. They survived a little better.
01:40To talk about something a little bit more joyous, one of the things that has moved me enormously
01:44throughout your career is your use of music in film. Are there any specific artists that
01:49have moved you the most or that you are listening to even right now that are moving you?
01:57Well, right now I try to listen to people who make music now. And there are some great people,
02:04a lot of women making amazing music, singers, songwriters. I think women right now have the
02:10edge there. But I do listen to some of my old heroes and some of them have really
02:15pulled me through every of my own crisis. And I think I want to mention especially Lou Reed right
02:21here, because, I mean, he's gone now for a number of years and I miss him very much.
02:26But his music is still very much alive and still with an acute sense of the now and here,
02:33even if he's gone. It reminds me in Perfect Days when especially with the use of that song,
02:40but also at the end, I think it's one of the most moving endings I've seen in a very long time
02:44with Nina Simone at the end. Not a single word is spoken, but everything is said in that last
02:49scene. Because Nina says the words of the song and she is what the song she says and she wrote
02:56what the song is all about. And I made sure that my actor, Koji Okushi, knew every word of the song.
03:04And you see it on his face that he understands what she's singing about. And what she's singing
03:11about is like the real credo of his life. The moment counts and the little things and the
03:19awareness of being alive. And it is a film about appreciating, like you said, those little things
03:25in life. And there's the concept of Komorebi, if I'm not mistaken, like the sunlight leaping
03:30through the trees. And it's something that stuck with me ever since I saw the film in Cannes and
03:34rewatched it. And just thinking that would be something that the world needs a lot more of right
03:41now. It's true, those people who took it, took the film and realized that some of the small things
03:48make these men very happy. They tried it out and it resulted in much more happiness in their own
03:54lives. I know lots of people who now leave the house in the morning and look up at the sky first
04:00with a smile. And they say it's a tremendous effect. And seeing the Komorebis that play this
04:07beautiful little spectacle that you see on the wall, on the floor, the sun and the leaves and
04:13the wind produce it, it's for free. And not many people see it, but learning to see it makes your
04:23life much richer. I was wondering, do you recall the film that sparked your joy for cinema?
04:32One of them was 2001. I was still not a filmmaker. One of the greatest pleasures of my life was to
04:39see Vertigo for the first time. And that has remained a hero film for me. But then I should
04:46mention the films of my master Yasujiro Ozu. I got to see him pretty late in life because
04:54he wasn't available neither in America nor in Europe because the Japanese didn't export his
05:00films because they thought he was too Japanese. But once I saw them, I was blown away. And that
05:06was like the lost paradise of filmmaking. So I love each and every one of his films.
05:11It's like one big work, all his 50 films. And finally, what are your ambitions and
05:19hopes for 2025 and the future? Well, I don't have personal hopes.
05:24I mean, this planet is suffering tremendously and we suffer from
05:33all of it going the wrong direction. I mean, in terms of the climate, it's going badly in
05:40the same direction, in the same old direction, which is the wrong direction. And in terms of
05:46politics, old ideas come up that already didn't work when they were applied before. Nationalism
05:54is, I thought was on the way out, but it's coming back big way. So I mean, now if every nation is
06:00now going to say me first, it's not going to go anywhere. So the idea of Europe is a much
06:07more beautiful idea. And so I think we can keep the idea of Europe going and
06:14defend it against all these nationalist attacks. Mr. Lenders, thank you so much for your time.