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Wim Wenders Declines to Remove Contested 1975 Scene

His request for an industry debate after receiving an honorary Deutscher Filmpreis award raises urgent questions about how to handle harmful material in film archives.

Overview

  • Wim Wenders, who accepted the Deutsche Filmpreis honorary award on Sunday, said he would work differently today but stopped short of agreeing to cut the 1975 scene showing a 13-year-old Nastassja Kinski.
  • Nastassja Kinski has long sought removal of the shot and told reporters she "already noticed that it was not right" when she was 13, a demand that remains unresolved.
  • Several outlets have reported that Wenders asked partners to make Falsche Bewegung inaccessible and that he is exploring AI-based changes, but those reports rely on unnamed sources and remain unverified.
  • Film scholars and commentators criticized Wenders' gala remarks as deflecting personal responsibility, with voices such as Annette Brauerhoch calling his appearance inappropriate and urging direct accountability.
  • The dispute has sparked wider debate over precedent, legal authority, archival duties, and the ethics and technical limits of retroactively editing historical films, with industry-wide standards now being called for.