For New York's specialty filmgoers, it was a very "Pina" Christmas. According to Rentrak estimates, the Wim Wenders-directed documentary that looks at the work of dance artist Pina Bausch grossed $88,399 from three screens in New York over the 4-day holiday weekend frame, averaging a fantastic $29,466.
"Pina opened to rave reviews and we are thrilled with the numbers," a Sundance Selects rep said today. "The film will stay exclusive in NY until an expansion to top markets early in January."

 source: indiewire.com

by Anthony Lane

".......The question is, What do you get from “Pina” that you could not get from watching the Tanztheater live? Answer: More than you could possibly believe. This is not just a matter of the al-fresco scenes, or of our proximity to the dancers, near enough to hear them pant. There is also Wenders’s decision to shoot the film in 3-D, and, in so doing, to goad stereoscopic technology into its first leap since “Avatar.” Not before time; 3-D was stalling badly, but now we are back on track, thanks to Scorsese’s “Hugo” and to Wenders, who takes no more than a minute to flourish his credentials. Dancers file across a stage, then loop around a transparent curtain. We watch for a moment from the wings, as they process toward us, and our vision carries us down the line of people and through the veil. You can trawl through cinema and find few more beautiful, more unforced, or more fleeting representations of the bourn between the living and the dead......"

Was Ever a City More Bewildering?
Wim Wenders, John Singleton, Richard Rodriguez, and Others Grapple With the Hidden, Violent, Beautiful, Sunny, Dreamy Mystery That Is Los Angeles

Images of Los Angeles in art, film, television, and advertising have captivated global audiences for decades. This weekend, a group of filmmakers, critics, historians, and writers visited Zócalo at the Getty Center to participate in three panels exploring how L.A. has shaped the world.

The half-day Zócalo/Getty conference, entitled “How Los Angeles Invented the World,” was part of Pacific Standard Time, an initiative of the Getty with arts institutions across Southern California. Directors William Friedkin (To Live and Die in L.A. and The Exorcist), Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas and The Million Dollar Hotel), and John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood), essayist Richard Rodriguez, critics Kenneth Turan and Richard Schickel, and some the country’s most prominent curators, historians, and journalists filled the Harold M. Williams Auditorium to capacity, with an overflow crowd watching in a nearby simulcast room...

text from: zocalopublicsquare.org          Full video / Wim Wenders segment

“Taking pictures is a very solitary thing, at least for me,” says Wenders. “That’s why I wouldn’t even want to have an assistant with me, because the very presence of somebody else would make that more important than my relation to the place. And to immerse in a place is strictly only possible when you are on your own. You can fake it and you can pretend to want to listen to a place but as soon as there is someone else there, even if it is just a bystander looking at what you are doing, it is over. You are no longer in the privileged position of being a listener.”

Read the interview in its entirety CLICK HERE

"When you travel a lot, and when you love to just wander around and get lost, you can end up in the strangest spots. … I don’t know, it must be some sort of built-in radar that often directs me to places that are strangely quiet, or quietly strange.” Wim Wenders

From his iconic images of exteriors and buildings to his panoramic depictions of towns and landscapes, this book presents the full range of Wenders’s photography.....

Get the catalogue: English / German      
See the works and installation photos at the Haunch of Venison Gallery Website