PvNew 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.
In “Anselm,” Wenders creates an immersive portrait of Anselm Kiefer, one of the most innovative and important painters and sculptors alive today. 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,” according to press notes.
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.
Considering whether his non-fiction films like this one are “documentaries,” Wenders says: “I realize one thing: I’ve always wanted to shoot my ‘documentaries’ as if we were involved in a fiction. Inversely, in my fiction films, I always preserved the documentary aspect that each act of filming includes, no matter what’s in front of the camera. Places and people – and I include actors in that category – deserve to be seen ‘as they are’ and ‘as what they want to be,’ could be or could have been. In fact, categories are strictly there to classify and name experiences, and they therefore very often do a disservice to them.”
Wenders asks himself: “What I hope for an audience to take away from the experience of ‘Anselm’? That they leave behind categories and opinions, leave behind any preconception of what art can be or can achieve, and just take in the stunning scope of this great German romantic, poet, thinker and visionary Anselm Kiefer.”
Cinematography is by Franz Lustig, music is by Leonard Küßner, and the film is edited by Maxine Goedicke. It was produced by Karsten Brünig for Road Movies.
