MASTERS ON SHORT: WIM WENDERS

July 11, 2025

Wim Wenders: Four Views of an Author

Starting this year, DokuFest launches a new program dedicated to the masters of cinema through their short films. Each edition will bring a selected retrospective that sheds light on the work of an auteur who has left a mark on the history of film. We open this first chapter with Wim Wenders, one of the most poetic and visionary voices of European cinema.

In this small retrospective, we present four of the legendary director’s short films. Made in different periods, these films offer a unique insight into his ideas, styles and artistic concerns, from formal experimentation to questions about the fate of cinema and the modern world.

Room 666 (1982) is a documentary shot in a hotel room during the Cannes Film Festival. Wenders has asked renowned directors, including Godard, Herzog and Spielberg, to answer a single question: Does cinema have a future?

Reverse Angle (1982) is a film essay made during a trip to Japan. Through images of cities, people and urban spaces, Wenders shares his thoughts on image, modernity and the way Western culture sees the East.

Same Player Shoots Again (1967) is one of his earliest experiments. A single shot, repeated five times in different colours, shows a man walking with a gun in his hand. The film plays with the idea of ​​repetition and tension, becoming an ironic reflection on violence, play and the forms of film storytelling.

Silver City Revisited (1968) is a short documentary about a ghost town in America. Through images of abandoned buildings and empty streets, Wenders attempts to understand an America that exists between memory and disappearance. A melancholic film that speaks of lost dreams and the emptiness left behind.

This program invites us to explore not only short films, but also the way an author sees the world and translates it into cinema.

Salaud Morisset, Wim Wenders Foundation

A full list of the films can be found here