32 Facts About Wim Wenders

Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer.

Wim Wenders is a major figure in New German Cinema.

Wim Wenders has been the president of the European Film Academy in Berlin since 1996.

Wim Wenders was born in Dusseldorf into a traditionally Catholic family.

The Dutch name "Wim Wenders" is a shortened version of the baptismal name "Wilhelm".

Wim Wenders graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area.

Wim Wenders then studied medicine at the University of Freiburg and philosophy at the University of Dusseldorf, but dropped out and moved to Paris in October 1966 in order to become a painter.

Wim Wenders failed his entry test at France's national film school, IDHEC, and instead became an engraver at Johnny Friedlaender's studio in Montparnasse.

Wim Wenders completed several short films before graduating from the Hochschule with a 16mm black-and-white film, Summer in the City, his feature directorial debut.

Wim Wenders's career began in the late 1960s, the New German Cinema era.

Wim Wenders has directed several highly acclaimed documentaries, most notably Buena Vista Social Club, about Cuban musicians, and The Soul of a Man, on American blues.

Wim Wenders directed a documentary-style film on the Skladanowsky brothers, known in English as A Trick of the Light.

Wim Wenders has directed many music videos for groups such as U2 and Talking Heads, including "Stay " and "Sax and Violins".

Wim Wenders is a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation.

In 2011, Wim Wenders was selected to stage the 2013 cycle of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival.

In 2012, while promoting his 3-D dance film Pina, Wim Wenders told the Documentary channel Blog that he had begun work on a new 3-D documentary about architecture.

Wim Wenders said he would only work in 3-D from then on.

Wim Wenders had admired the dance choreographer Pina Bausch since 1985, but only with the advent of digital 3-D cinema did he decide that he could sufficiently capture her work on screen.

In June 2017, Wim Wenders stage-directed Georges Bizet's opera Les Pecheurs de perles, starring Olga Peretyatko and Francesco Demuro and conducted by Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin State Opera.

Wim Wenders said that, though raised Catholic, he had converted to Protestantism years earlier.

In 2019 Wim Wenders acted as executive producer for his former assistant director Luca Lucchesi's documentary A Black Jesus, which has similar themes to Pope Francis: A Man of His Word.

Wim Wenders has worked with photographic images of desolate landscapes and themes of memory, time, loss, nostalgia and movement.

Wim Wenders began his long-running project "Pictures from the Surface of the Earth" in the early 1980s and pursued it for 20 years.

The initial photographic series was titled "Written in the West" and was produced while Wim Wenders criss-crossed the American West in preparation for his film Paris, Texas.

Wim Wenders has received many awards, including the Golden Lion for The State of Things at the Venice Film Festival ; the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for his movie Paris, Texas; and Best Direction for Wings of Desire in the 1987 Bavarian Film Awards and the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.

Wim Wenders was awarded the Leopard of Honour at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2005.

Wim Wenders received a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay for the film.

Wim Wenders has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Sorbonne in Paris in 1989, the University of Fribourg in 1995 and the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium in 2005.

The Wim Wenders Foundation was established in Dusseldorf in 2012.

Wim Wenders was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015.

In 2017, Wim Wenders received the Douglas Sirk Award at the Hamburg Film Festival.

Wim Wenders is an ecumenical Christian; as a teenager he wished to become a Catholic priest.