Wim Wenders has made a new foray into 3D with his drama "Every Thing Will Be Fine," which he got ready just in time for its premiere Tuesday at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The movie, starring James Franco, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Richard Naylor, showed out of competition Tuesday at the festival. Later this week, the German director of "Paris, Texas" and "Buena Vista Social Club" also will be given an honorary Golden Bear — the event's top award — for his life's work.
THE 3D MAGNIFYING GLASS
Wenders' tried out 3D in "Pina," his 2011 tribute to the late German choreographer Pina Bausch, and he returned to the format in the documentary "Cathedrals of Culture."
The new movie explores the issues of healing and forgiveness following a tragic accident. Wenders said 3D "puts everything under a magnifying glass" and that, with Bjorn Olaf Johannessen's script, he finally found the material he wanted to make a dramatic film in the format.
Wenders said he "discovered that 3D had other potential than filming dance and architecture" and it gave characters "a whole different presence."
JUST IN TIME
Wenders faced a last-minute rush to get "Every Thing Will Be Fine" ready for its debut. The film team was still working on the music a week ago and mixing as the festival opened on Thursday, he said.
"It was a little scary to finish the film three days before it's shown here," Wenders said. "But everything went well, and I knew all the time everything will be good."
SUBLIMINAL DIRECTING
Franco said that Wenders, while "very precise" about the composition and look of the film, gave his actors a lot of room to develop their characters.
However, "I feel like even with that room I somehow was acting a Wim Wenders character, and it comes with a very light touch," he said. "So he's very good at that kind of subliminal directing."
PERSUADING OPRAH
Director Ava DuVernay brought the Oscar-nominated "Selma" to the festival, where it screened outside the main competition, and recalled struggling to get co-producer Oprah Winfrey to appear in the film.
"Oprah did not want to act in the movie," DuVernay said. "She made me beg her."
The director said that, at the fourth time of asking, she gave Winfrey an article in which Annie Lee Cooper, the character she plays, said that watching the "Oprah Show" was part of her routine. That elicited the response: "OK, OK, I'll do it."
The movie chronicles the campaign leading up to the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
