Wim Wenders on 2025: Europe is a beautiful idea - we can defend it against nationalist attacks

It’s always a bit daunting sitting opposite a cinematic titan.

Unless that particular titan is the always affable Wim Wenders.

This year’s recipient of the European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement award, the German filmmaker behind such classics as Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire, Buena Vista Social Club and one of our favourite films of 2023, the quietly captivating Perfect Days, remains as humble, insightful and friendly as ever.  

Still, it’s not every day you’re celebrated by your peers - the “family” you were the president of for almost a quarter of a century - and Wenders is THE major figure of New German Cinema, so it’s best behaviour and minimal swooning.  

Euronews Culture sat down with Wim Wenders at this year’s European Film Awards to talk about his latest award, how budget cuts shouldn’t affect culture, the films that marked his life, and his hopes for 2025.

Euronews Culture: I had the pleasure of speaking to you last year in Lyon, where you won the Prix Lumière. And this year, you’re receiving the European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement award. What does this mean to you?

Wim Wenders: Last year was very special, and this year’s award is special too because it's from my family. I've been involved with the European Film Academy since its beginning, for all its 36 years - and 24 of those years as their president. So I feel it's family. And normally you don't get an award from your family. They just pat you on the shoulder and say, ‘Well done, boy’ and then they go. So it's very special for me.

As president of the European Film Academy from 1996 to 2020, you've been ideally placed to contribute to and witness the evolution of European cinema over the years.  What do you make of its progress and is it evolving in the right way?

We were evolving nicely and then the pandemic happened, and that threw a bone into the system. It diverted a whole lot of people away from theaters and from movies to streaming, and they grew much more and faster than they ever expected. It was almost inevitable that audiences were slowly going over to streaming services... But this happened abruptly, and it was a pretty hard blow to independent and smaller kinds of  cinemas than the big blockbusters. They survived a little better.

There are also other threats to independent cinema aside from streaming, including the recent threat by the German government to remove cultural funding from certain institutions. Are we losing sight of the value of culture, including cinema, in society?

I mean, it's always the same. People, governments, countries have to cut budgets and they always do the obvious and the worst at the same time. They start cutting cultural funding and that, in the long run, is the hardest price they're paying. Because I think that in the long run, they would profit from culture remaining vivid and alive.

Cutting culture first is cutting the whole impetus and the whole joy out of whatever is going to happen afterwards. A few times I saw it happen that in hard times people and governments invested in culture, and that always paid off. It always helped them get through the crisis - whatever it was. But cutting culture means not to prepare people for whatever crisis there is, but making them go into it grumpily. I think it's the wrong decision. I think they should rather invest in culture more than doing the opposite right now. 

To talk about something a little bit more joyous, one of the things that has moved me enormously throughout your career is your use of music in film. Last year at the Lumière Festival, there was a stunning vinyl that was released, which compiled many of the songs that have featured in your films – everyone from Nick Cave to Eels and Radiohead. It’s an impressive selection of artists over the years...    

I try as much as I can to listen to a lot of music made right now, and there are some great people. A lot of women are making amazing music. I think women right now have the edge. But I do listen to some of my old heroes, and some of them have really pulled me through every one of my own crises. I think I want to mention Lou Reed right here, because he's been gone for a number of years and I miss him very much. But his music is still very much alive and still with an acute sense of the now and here, even if he's gone.

You mentioning Lou Reed reminds me of Perfect Days with the use of his songs, but also that incredibly moving ending with your use of Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’. Not a single word is spoken, but everything is said in that last scene.

Yes, because Nina says the words and what the song is all about. I made sure that my actor, Kōji Yakusho, knew every word of this song... And you see it on his face that he understands what she's singing about. What she's singing about is the real credo of his life. The moment counts and the little things matter, and it’s the awareness of being alive.

The film is about appreciating those seemingly samll things in life, as well as the Japanese concept of komorebi – which if I’m not mistaken translates as 'sunlight leaking through the trees'.  It’s a concept that the world needs a lot more of right now...  

It's true, those people who took to the film realized that the small things are what make this man very happy. They tried it out and it resulted in much more happiness in their own lives. I know lots of people who now leave the house in the morning and look up at the sky first with a smile - and they say it has a tremendous effect. And seeing komorebi at play, this beautiful little spectacle that you see on a wall or on the floor - the sun and the leaves and the wind produce it. It's for free! (Laughs) And not many people see it, but learning to see it makes your life much richer.

Speaking of making life richer, do you recall the film that sparked your joy for cinema?

What would that have been? One of them was 2001: A Space Odyssey. Let me think... One of the greatest pleasures of my life was to see Vertigo for the first time, and that has remained a ‘hero film’ for me. But then I should mention the films of my master, Yasujiro Ozu. I got to see him pretty late in life because he wasn't available, neither in America nor in Europe, because the Japanese didn't export his films because they thought it was "too Japanese". But once I saw them, I was blown away. That was like the lost paradise of filmmaking - I love each and every one of his films. It's like one big  work, all of his 50 films.

Throughout your career, you've crossed borders with your films - whether it's Cuba with Buena Vista Social Club, the US with Paris, Texas or Japan with Perfect Days, to mention a small handful. Are there any places that you want to go to and film, locations you have yet to travel to?

Yes. My whole life I’ve wanted to go to India, and next year I'm finally going to do it for a whole month. That's one of the places I've always saved, and now I can go there for four weeks next year! But I'm also a little hesitant because again, I'm going to be homesick, and I'm already homesick for too many places! (Laughs)

What are your ambitions and hopes for 2025? Apart from your trip to India, of course...

Well, I don't have personal hopes. I mean, this planet is suffering tremendously and we suffer from all of it going in the wrong direction. In terms of the climate, it is going badly  in the same old direction – which is the wrong direction. In terms of politics, old ideas come up that already didn't work when they were applied before. I thought nationalism was on the way out, but it's coming back in a big way. If every nation is now going to say, ‘Me first!’ it's not going to go anywhere. The idea of Europe is a much more beautiful idea. I think we can keep the idea of Europe going and defend it against all these nationalist attacks.

Mr. Wenders thank you so much for your time.

Check out extracts from our interview with Wim Wenders in the video at the top of this article. Perfect Days was released in most European territories last year and made our list for 2023's Best Movies - thereby explaining why it can't be found in our 2024 Best Movies list. Stay tuned to Euronews Culture for our People of the Year 2024 roundup.