In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”
My mother googles the film hero of her youth: Helmut Berger. She is shocked: only an addicted shadow of the former icon seems to be left. She decides to halt the obvious catastrophic decline of the once “most handsome man in the world”. As a consequence, this one-time god of the screen is suddenly sitting on my mother’s sofa in Nordsehl in Lower Saxony. And he stays put - for several months. While he trustingly rolls out his whole life before us, the dividing lines between film team, world star and family intermingle. This is a film about ageing, rising and falling - and about the fact that it is sometimes possible to regain an element of dignity in life.
Part of the crew of Honor of the Knights travels to La Mancha to see the real settings of Quixote’s life in order to shoot a film.
Episodic film, divided into 14 chapters, based on the play De los nombres de Cristo (1586), by Fray Luis de Leon and intended for exhibition "Are You Ready for TV?". Filmed partly in the rooms of MACBA (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona), is about the difficulty of naming or visually represent abstract concepts.
An homage from Serra to one of his idols, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, shot in a nightclub full of characters that resemble the ones of Fassbinder films. The title comes from the favourite drink of “Beware of the Holy Whore” characters.
A “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french film critic André S. Labarthe, originally aired sometime around 2015.
Waiting for Sancho is an ontological investigation into a place where cinema becomes something more than cinema. Filmed in high-definition colour over five days in the Canary Islands of Fuerteventura and Tenerife, Waiting for Sancho is a kind of experimental “making of” the critically acclaimed El cant dels ocells (Birdsong_/_Le chant des oiseaux). A particular take on the Biblical story of The Three Kings en route to the baby Jesus, El cant dels ocells premiered at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at Cannes 2008.
The exhibition 'The Complete Letters' features epistolary works defined by cinematographic creation. This is an experimental communication format used between pairs of film directors. Although each director is situated in a location geographically distant from that of their partner, they are united by their willingness to share ideas and reflections on all that motivates their work. Within this space of freedom, the directors featured in the exhibition examine their affinities and differences, within an environment of mutual respect and simultaneity of interests and with notable formal variants established in each of the correspondences.
SYNOPSIS Albert Serra’s piece for and audiovisual tribute to Chaplin the filmmaker… What is Chaplin’s legacy in contemporary cinema? It is not about producing films like Chaplin did, nor remembering the icon in a naïve fashion, but about finding traces of his cinema in their own individual looks.
A portrait of the world of contemporary art. A world full of extravagances and colorful characters, but suggestive of the contrast it represents with the normal life of most people. An artificial, theatrical and equivocal world but inhabited by innocence and blind faith in the transforming power of art. The film is a tribute to this world and to these people, with ironic and often provocative borders, but sincere in their admiration for the subversive power of the artists who always question, and in the most unexpected (sometimes involuntary) way, our system of values.
In “Spaces #3”, 7 internationally acclaimed directors shot, after commissioning by the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, a short film at home, making their own timely comment on the new reality that we live in. The project is inspired by the book “Species of Spaces” by the French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist, Georges Perec and the days of quarantine. The idea is to create a film at home, using the environment, the people or the animals in that space. The only outdoor areas that may be used are outdoor living spaces, such as the terrace, the garden, the balcony and the stairwell. “My influences” is Albert Serra’s submission.
God Sees It is a journey into the creative universe of Oscar Tusquets, one of the most fascinating figures of the last sixty years as well as one-of-a-kind character of the gauche divine, in whose mind art, irony, and rebellion coexist. The film traces an inimitable career, from his beginnings in Barcelona, quietly rebelling against the backdrop of the dictatorship, and his collaborations with Salvador Dalí, to his interventions in the Palau de la Musica Catalana or the unique Toledo metro station in Naples. If this is not enough, the film is filled with reflections and conversations on art with friends like Miquel Barceló, Albert Serra, Mario Vargas Llosa or Julia de Castro.