Anselm | Wim Wenders 3D documentary

[BluBonnet]

Wim Wenders Doc ‘Anselm’ Secures U.S. Distribution Via Sideshow & Janus Films

Sideshow and Janus Films have snapped up all US rights to Wim Wenders’ Cannes title Anselm, a 3D documentary about the celebrated contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer.

Anselm debuted as a Special Screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It was produced by Karsten Brünig for Road Movies and executive produced by Jeremy Thomas. HanWay repped on sales. Sideshow and Janus Films have said they are planning a theatrical release following fall festivals.

The acquisition re-teams HanWay and Jeremy Thomas with Sideshow and Janus Films after they collaborated on Jerzy Skolimowskli’s EO, which was nominated for the Best International Feature Film Oscar. Attending their third Cannes since launching their partnership in 2021, Wenders’ Anselm is Sideshow and Janus Films’ third pick-up from this year’s festival. Past acquisitions include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar-winning Drive My Car. Sideshow and Janus Films previously announced deals on Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dy Grasses, which won the Best Actress Prize at Cannes, and Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer, her first film in a decade.

In addition to the U.S. acquisition deal, HanWay has secured distribution on Anselm in the following territories: France (Films Du Losange), Germany (DCM), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Greece (The Film Group), Italy (Lucky Red), Spain (A Contracorriente), Portugal (Alambique), Poland (New Horizons), Australia and New Zealand (Madman), China (DDDream), and NonStop releasing in Scandinavia, Iceland, and the Baltics.

“Anselm was a labor of love and turned out to take seven shooting periods and altogether three years to become a film like nothing I’ve ever done before,” Wenders said. “I think we stretched the possibilities of 3D into unknown territory. So, you can imagine how happy I am to be working again with my good friends at Sideshow and Janus Films.“

Sideshow and Janus Films added: “Wim Wenders recently remarked, ‘There are not many adventures left on Earth, but the human mind is a great adventure, and artists are some of the most adventurous people on the planet.’ When we saw Anselm at Cannes, we were transported by this visionary portrait of a once-in-a-generation artist from a once-in-a-generation filmmaker. We are so happy to continue our relationship with Wim Wenders and to bring his exquisite and personal film to theaters around the country.”

Anselm was Wenders’ second film at Cannes this year. His latest fiction piece, Perfect Days, screened in competition and won Best Actor for Koji Yakusho.

[Nitroes]

Germany Blu-ray March 2024 https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=21762917

[BluBonnet]

Wim Wenders on Why He Turned to 3D for His Documentary ‘Anselm’: “It’s a Great Medium”

German filmmaker Wim Wenders still remembers the epiphany he had when viewing the experimental concert film U2 3D at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It was one of the earliest live-action digital 3D productions — Avatar was still two years away from its defining 2009 release — but at that screening he saw 3D’s potential to convey space and depth, so he used it for his next project, a documentary about dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. “3D is about perception of space, and that’s what I needed most in order to be in Pina’s kingdom,” says the director. With stunning re-creations of her choreography, Pina was released in 2011 and became the first digital 3D feature documentary to earn an Oscar nomination.

More than a decade later, stereoscopic 3D has had its ups and downs in terms of public perception, but Wenders continues to believe that this format delivers an important dimension to his art form. “You are more involved as a spectator,” says the director of films such as Buena Vista Social Club and Paris, Texas. “You’re more involved emotionally.

“It’s a great medium for documentaries,” adds Wenders, whose latest doc is the 3D production Anselm, which allows audiences to experience the works of German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. “Mostly what you do in a documentary is try to take your audience to a certain place or have them follow a character and you enter somebody else’s world. There’s nothing better for that than 3D.”

He certainly found that to be true when it came to exposing audiences to his friend Kiefer’s path from his native Germany to his current home in France and, in doing so, giving the audience a way to experience his textured works. “Anselm has a body of work that has no comparison to anything else,” says Wenders, remembering the first time he saw Kiefer’s studio. “On my own, walking around it, there was so much there and it was so overwhelming. [With 3D], I could take people into his universe and turn his art into an experience.”

The medium also allowed Wenders to display the textures and layers of Kiefer’s work. “Some of his paintings have a crust of 10 inches, and wood or all sorts of things protruding,” he explains.

Production technology has evolved over the past decade, and this time around, Wenders and DP Franz Lustig filmed the movie in native 3D and at 6K resolution using a rig with Sony’s Venice cameras and its lightweight Rialto extension system, which effectively detaches the sensor from the camera body, enabling filmmakers to be more nimble. (Those cameras also were used on Avatar: The Way of Water.)

Remembering the first time he showed the finished doc to Kiefer, Wenders admits he was a little nervous. “Surprising him was the only thing he demanded [of] me. He never saw a script, never came to visit me in the editing room,” the director recalls. “He did say, ‘You surprised me.’ ”

[Reg Hartt]

Ordered the English language version in 2D and the German version in 3D. When a director consciously chooses to film in 3D why is a distributor ignoring that artistic choice and releasing this only in 2D?

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by Reg Hartt

Ordered the English language version in 2D and the German version in 3D. When a director consciously chooses to film in 3D why is a distributor ignoring that artistic choice and releasing this only in 2D?

Yes, distributors should release the movies the way the directors intended them to be seen.

[BluBonnet]

Poll added.

Definitely go and watch this if it is showing in 3D anywhere near you!