13/02/2011

Presented this morning out of competition at the Berlinale, Wim Wenders’s Pina [+see also:
trailer
interview: Wim Wenders
film profile] is a 3D documentary/homage to dance. Besides the other 3D documentary of the day, Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the film is by far the highlight of the fourth day of the festival.

The first 3D art feature and among the first 3D films produced in Europe, Pina is openly not a film “on Pina Bausch, but dedicated to her”, conceived and prepared by the director with the German dancer-choreographer up until her sudden passing, on June 30, 2009, just days before 3D shooting was to begin.

An admirer and friend of Bausch, Wenders tried to make a film about her for a long time, but only with the introduction of new 3D technologies did he find the aesthetic approach capable of bringing to the big screen the movement and emotional expressiveness of the choreographer’s Tanztheatre (“dance theatre”).

The film blends the dancers’ personal memories, footage of Bausch and moments, shot for the documentary, of her most renowned pieces, including Café Müller and Vollmond.

“Pina had her own way of looking at things, and I was fascinated by it. She gave so much room to movement and expression, we’d never seen anything like it. You couldn’t hide anything from her, she could look through people, with enormous accuratezza, and great love”, said Wenders at the film’s press conference. “Her works contained her emotions, she knew how to show them”.

Together with a 3D pioneer, stereographer Alain Derobe, the director chose to place the camera between the dancers rather than in front of them, as in 2D films, for an almost ensemble effect with the movement.
Shot from 2009-10 in a studio and in location throughout the city of Wuppertal, wehre Tanztheatre is based, Pina is a Franco/German co-production where Wenders’ Neue Road Movies GmbH, Eurowide Film production and broadcasters ZDF and ARTE.

Sold by Hanway, the film will be released in Germany by NFP Marketing & Distribution on February 24.

(Translated from Italian)