TEHRAN-The 41st Tehran International Short Film Festival (TISFF) will kick off on October 18 at Mellat Cineplex in Tehran. One of the standout sections of this year’s festival is a special screening of four short and medium-length films by the renowned German filmmaker Wim Wenders, scheduled for Monday, October 21.

The program includes “Same Player Shoots Again,” “Room 666,” “Silver City Revisited,” and “Reverse Angle,” which will be shown in one session.

In individual notes provided to the international secretariat of the TISFF, the esteemed filmmaker has explained his films.

About “Room 666,” he said: “At the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, there was a general sense of despair. It felt as if the end of cinema was inevitable, and this feeling was pervasive. It was as if a ‘black hole’ in the history of cinema was about to open. So, I decided to conduct a survey among my colleagues about the future of cinema. I invited all of them to the only available room in the city: Room 666 at the Martinez Hotel. There was a camera in the room, and the question was placed on the table. My colleagues only had to turn on the tape recorder and the camera. When they were ready to give their individual answers, filmmakers like Godard, Fassbinder, Spielberg, Antonioni, Herzog, and others responded to the question: ‘Is cinema a dying art form? Is it a language that is being lost?’ Some gave detailed answers, while others, feeling uneasy, remained silent, and we cut them out…”

In the 50-minute documentary “Room 666” (1982), 15 famous directors from France, Italy, Brazil, Lebanon, Germany, Turkey, the Philippines, and the U.S. are asked to give their views on the future of cinema.

“Silver City Revisited” is a 25-minute film Wenders directed in 1969. It depicts the inhabitants of a busy city, who go about their everyday lives as the traffic on its roads swells and diminishes gradually.

Explaining the film, the director said: “I was greatly influenced by the landscapes of the various apartments I lived in as a student in Munich, and I had a collection of postcards. In the attic of the film school, I found a collection of old 78 shellac records and numbered them accordingly, but the recording mix didn’t happen. In the end, using the film school’s 16mm projector, I recorded them directly and approximately onto the audio track.”

Wenders made “Same Player Shoots Again” in 1968. In the 12-minute film, in a sequence of five shots, a man carrying a machine gun runs until he starts to slow down.

Speaking about the film, he said: “My first short film was ‘Scenes’ but it somehow got lost. However, two shots from it survived and became the first two shots of ‘Same Player Shoots Again’. These two shots form the prologue. The rest of the film, after the title, consists of a three-minute shot repeated five times, like five balls in a pinball machine. The film was shot in black and white, then repeated five times, each time tinted in a different color. It didn’t really turn into a color film; there’s just a little blue, red, yellow, and green along the way.”

“Reverse Angle” is a short documentary made in 1982. In the film, Wenders discusses his experience during the making of the film “Hammett,” and reflects on the differences between film production in Europe and the U.S.

“This film was a kind of diary. It was about New Wave music (including the band The Del-Byzanteens, led by Jim Jarmusch), about wandering around New York, about editing with Francis Ford Coppola, about a novel by Emmanuel Bove, and about Edward Hopper. In fact, the whole thing was somehow a reflection on filmmaking in Europe and America,” Wenders said.

Wim Wenders, 79, is renowned for his films that possess deep philosophical and emotional themes and is recognized as one of the prominent figures of New German Cinema.

Among the honors he has received are prizes from the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin film festivals. He has also received a BAFTA Award and been nominated for four Academy Awards and a Grammy Award.

He has a diverse body of work, with some of his most famous films being “Paris, Texas” (1984) and “Wings of Desire” (1987), which have not only won numerous awards at international festivals but have also had a significant impact on European and North American cinema. In 1984, he won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for “Paris, Texas,” and in 1987, he received the Best Director award at the same festival for “Wings of Desire”.

Wenders is known for addressing social and human issues with a unique aesthetic, and he has had a significant influence on both commercial and artistic cinema worldwide.

He formerly served as the president of the European Film Academy from 1996 to 2020. He also earned an Honorary Golden Bear in 2015. He is also an active photographer, emphasizing images of desolate landscapes.

This year’s edition of the Tehran International Short Film Festival received 13,651 submissions from more than 30 countries. The number of submitted films is a new record in the history of the event, about twice the number of submissions last year. Of the total submissions, 107 short films will compete for the top awards.

The line-up includes 59 short fiction films, 21 animated movies, 18 documentaries, and nine experimental films. The submitted works are from India, China, Poland, the U.S., Egypt, Greece, France, Palestine, Turkey, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Australia, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Cuba among others.

The TISFF has been held for 40 consecutive years in Iran, by the Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS) – one of the most renowned schools of cinema and short film production in Iran and throughout the world. 

The TISFF is approved by the Academy Awards® (Oscars) and the winner of the Grand Prize becomes eligible for the Oscars.

Mehdi Azarpendar, the managing director of the IYCS, will serve as the secretary of the upcoming edition of the TISFF, due to be held from October 18 to 23 in Tehran.

SS/