Euronews spoke with decorated German filmmaker Wim Wenders, who received the 15th Prix Lumière at this year's Festival Lumière in Lyon.
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00:00 Decorated German filmmaker Wim Wenders has been awarded the 15th Prix Lumiere in Lyon
00:07 in south-east France. This unique prize pays tribute to the greatest names in cinema.
00:14 Following in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood, Ken Loach, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese,
00:21 Jane Fonda and Tim Burton among others, the director of Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas
00:27 and Buena Vista Social Club was honoured for his contribution to cinema.
00:34 His wealth of work includes fiction and documentaries. The filmmaker, who is also a photographer,
00:42 has always reflected on the meaning of images. For him, winning the Prix Lumiere is an apotheosis.
00:50 In the word, "lumiere" is the source of cinema. Lumiere is so much the essence of life that
00:57 this prize is highly symbolic and it's much more of a joy than any other prize I've ever
01:18 received.
01:21 After Piener, his documentary on the great German dancer Piener Bausch, he pays tribute
01:27 to Anselm Kiefer, one of Germany's greatest living artists, in the documentary Anselm,
01:33 which hit cinemas this autumn.
01:40 Wenders is a filmmaker without artistic boundaries.
01:47 For me, cinema has never been a national story. I discovered it in Paris. I wanted to be a
02:03 painter and I discovered cinema and it changed my life.
02:10 I'm a convinced European. It was the greatest emotion of my life to have this idea of a
02:21 Europe where there will always be peace and never war again, where we leave nationalism
02:31 behind us and we've seen what that leads to. So it's a great catastrophe, this loss of
02:37 memory.
02:39 Wim Wenders is also a filmmaker without borders. He shot his latest film, Perfect Days, in
02:46 Japan, which won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival and will be on European screens by
02:53 the end of the year.
02:55 The Lumiere Festival offers a host of retrospectives and tributes, with a number of guests of honour
03:00 this year, including Wes Anderson, Marisa Paradis and Terry Gilliam, the former member
03:05 of the Monty Python comedy troupe and director of Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. The latter was
03:10 restored in 4K and presented at the Festival Lumiere.
03:15 I'm sitting on the beginning of cinema. That's what's so exciting being here. We haven't
03:21 improved it much better than they did. They were, right from the start, brilliant. I want
03:28 all my films restored. And they've been recently doing quite a bit. And this new version is
03:34 coming out in France. So I just thought it would be very nice to be involved in drawing
03:39 attention to it because it's a film I'm very proud of.
03:42 What year do you think it is?
03:44 1996.
03:44 Oh, 1996 is the future.
03:47 Twelve Monkeys was restored and screened during the festival, a way of revisiting cult films
03:53 on the big screen rather than on a smartphone or tablet.
03:58 It's a great idea. I want the future to be unknown. I want to stay here with you.
04:05 You want me to, don't you?
04:06 Get you out.
04:07 I know some things that you don't know.
04:08 My dream just now.
04:09 You can't trick us, you know.
04:10 The Lyon Lumiere Festival has established itself as one of Europe's must-see festivals,
04:21 an atypical and popular festival that brings together all the history of cinema and its
04:26 great classics, with a film market and the greatest professionals in restoration and
04:31 heritage. Not forgetting the great contemporary films and a host of avant-premieres from the
04:39 top festivals such as Cannes and Venice. All of this, of course, on the big screen in the
04:45 city's cultural venues, often in the presence of prestigious guests.
04:54 [music]