Wim Wenders Reveals the Poignant Backstory of Pina 3D

Wim Wenders premiered his most personal project to date at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival: a celluloid love letter to the late German modern dance choreographer Pina Bausch titled Pina 3D. In today’s film for NOWNESS, co-directors Carlo Lavagna and Roberto De Paolis sat down with the 65-year-old filmmaker, who helped to revolutionize German cinema in the 1960s alongside contemporaries Rainer Fassbinder and Werner Herzog, and went on to make such classics as Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire. Wenders opened up about his shock and grief after Bausch lost her battle with cancer just days before shooting was scheduled to begin on Pina 3D. The film became a heartfelt homage to his dear friend, its focus shifting to Bausch’s loyal dancers, and to Wuppertal, the base of her Tanztheater company. Bausch’s life work is presented in dazzling performances staged on city streets and monorails, and in parks, quarries and deserted industrial factory spaces. Says Lavagna: “The whole range of human feelings is there: love, hate, the need for another human being—it’s all in the dance. It took the advent of 3D for the director to find the means of bringing that poetic vision to the screen.” Pina 3D will open in the UK on April 22.