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Wings of Desire
(Der Himmel über Berlin)

Screening on Film
Directed by Wim Wenders.
With Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Peter Falk.
West Germany/France, 1987, 35mm, color and b&w, 128 min.
German with English subtitles.

Inspired by a poem from Rilke and co-written by acclaimed Austrian playwright Peter Handke, Wings of Desire follows a pair of angels who descend to earth to eavesdrop on the lonely, melancholy populace in the streets and buildings of pre-unification Berlin. Aided by the haunting, mostly monochromatic images of veteran cinematographer Henri Alekan, Wenders creates a spiritual documentary of the city and a haunting portrait of what it means to be human. He earned a Best Director award at Cannes for this meditative work, aptly dedicated to three of his own cinematic "angels": Ozu, Truffaut, and Tarkovsky.

Part of film series

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Film Architectures

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Henri Alekan:
Master of Light and Shadow

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Film Architectures / The Moving Image

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Matters of Life and Death:
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Imagining the City

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2018 Norton Lectures in Cinema
Wim Wenders