Room 666

“There was a general gloom at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. The feeling that the end of cinema was inevitable was roaming everywhere. A ‘black hole’ was opening in film history so to say. So I thought I would do a survey among my colleagues about the future of cinema. I invited them all to the only available room in the whole town. Room 666 at the Hotel Martinez. The was a single camera in the room and the question was on the table. My colleagues only had to turn on the tape recorder and the camera when they were ready to give their solitary answers. Godard, Fassbinder, Spielberg, Antonioni, Herzog and other filmmakers gave response to the question: ‘Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?’

Some have answered the question very extensively, others were unsettled by the situation and remained silent, We then cut those out…”

Format

West Germany/USA 1982
Length: 50 min
Format: 16mm Eastmancolor; 1:1,33
Language: English, French, German etc.

2K Restoration 2023, 2K DCP


Festivals & Awards

1985 • Berlin International Film Festival (Forum)

2023 • Festival Lumière Lyon (premiere of the restored version)


Cast and crew

Production: Gray City Inc. (New York) Director: Wim Wenders Producer: Chris Sievernich Screenplay: Wim Wenders Director of Photography: Agnès Godard Editor: Chantal de Vismes Sound: Jean-Paul Mugel Participating: Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Steven Spielberg, Yilmaz Güney, Michelangelo Antonioni, R. W. Fassbinder, Paul Morrissey, Mike de Leon, Monte Hellman, Romain Goupil, Susan Seidelman, Noel Simsolo, Robert Kramer, Ana Carolina, Mahroun Bagdadi, Wim Wenders

Commentary: Wim Wenders Music: Jürgen Knieper Commissioned by: Antenne 2 (Paris) In Cooperation with: Cinema, Cinema Paris Editorial Office: Michel Boujut, Claude Ventura Premiere (F): 02.06.1982, Antenne 2 Premiere (DE): 24.02.1985, Berlin, IFF (Forum) First TV Broadcast (DE): 16.09.1990, West 3 World Sales: HanWay Films


Press Sheet (PDF)

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