Who would have thought…

… that Road Movies would be around for so long!?

A quarter of a century ago,
in the basement of a house in Munich,
in the early summer of 1976,
I was pondering about what to call the company
that I had to create in a hurry
in order to be able to produce my next film,
a thriller based on the novel "Ripley's Game" by Patricia Highsmith
and tentatively called "Framed".
That new company had to be a corporation
to comply with all the new regulations regarding subsidies,
and that was quite a departure for me:
I had produced the previous one,
"Im Lauf der Zeit" (Kings of the Road)
out of my kitchen, basically.

We needed a name right away,
the company had to be registered in Berlin immediately.
There was a smart young man working in my office at the time,
Harald Vogel was his name,
who came up with the suggestion of "Road Movies".
He got the idea straight from an American review of my films.
Sure, those were Road Movies:
"Alice in the Cities", "Wrong Move" and "Kings of the Road".
Why not call the company this as well?
It seemed rather programmatic to me,
But, then again, my own ideas for names were so downright boring
that "Road Movies" eventually seemed like the only way out of the dilemma.
Would the German authorities accept an English name?
We ended up having to add "Filmproduktion GmbH" to it.

The first manager was Renée Gundelach.
The first movie the company produced
was finally called "The American Friend".
It played everywhere in the world.
Road Movies had started on a good footing.

Soon afterwards, I moved to America for seven long years,
initially to do "Hammett", then to actually live there.
Road Movies survived basically on Renée's energy.
She produced a number of films in my absence,
but Road Movies showed its potential
when I wanted to make two films on my own in America,
rather spontaneously:
"Lightning Over Water" with Nicholas Ray,
and then "The State of Things".
From an American point of view, these were impossible projects,
without scripts, without budgets, without insurance.
Through Road Movies, these projects became possible,
but also through the adventurous spirit of Chris Sievernich,
whom I met in New York through "Lightning".

Chris went on to produce "State of Things".
Very much like the legendary producer in the picture itself, "Gordon",
Chris would show up once a week on the set in Portugal,
and each time he would have managed to find some more money, somewhere,
so that we could continue shooting a film
that basically told the story of a film crew stranded without money…

"State of Things" did well for us.
It won the Golden Lion in Venice.
Road Movies had made a name for itself.

With Chris I made one more picture, "Paris, Texas".
The film was shot by a European crew working in the US
without work permits and without union deals.
It was a guerrilla mission,
and more than risky at times.
(That was the time before "independent cinema"…)
Chris and I pulled it off, though.
Road Movies was on a roll.
"Paris, Texas" won the Golden Palm in Cannes.

The film was a great success worldwide, but almost killed us.
German distribution was troubled,
we had legal disputes over the release of the film.
Also, "Paris, Texas" had ended up costing more than we had budgeted,
and when monies from the releases weren't coming in quick enough to help us,
Road Movies experienced its biggest crisis,
at what seemed its greatest moment of glory.

This is when Uli Felsberg took over as manager.
I had been told by several competent people
that I had no way out of avoiding bankruptcy.
Uli was my last straw.
Maybe he had an ace up his sleeve…
He did.
He single-handedly sailed the ship past some dangerous cliffs.
We just had to work very hard to stay in the wind.

"Der Himmel über Berlin" ("Wings of Desire") came at the right moment.
Everybody expected something like "Paris, Texas" again.
I was ready to do the opposite:
The last thing I wanted to do was to repeat myself.
When we showed "Wings" at Cannes,
nobody had ever seen the film except for the immediate crew.
I was sure we'd be massacred over it.
It seemed like such an eclectic thing to do,
a movie about angels,
made more like a poem than a narrative film.

What shall I say?
It became the company's biggest success.
From then on it was easier for a while.
Even if "Until the End of the World"
with a budget of more than 24 million Dollars
and a one year shooting schedule around the world
was stretching the notion of a "Road Movie" to the limits.

Uli, by now co-owner and partner,
managed to keep the risks down from then on.
He also convinced me that a company like ours
could not continue to survive on just my films.
Times were changing drastically.
Road Movies got involved more and more in international coproductions.
We have made an increasing number of films every year since then
with partners from all over Europe and the world.
With directors like Michelangelo Antonioni or Stephen Frears,
Peter Handke, Gerardo Herrero, Ken Loach, Paul McGuigan,
Carlos Saura, Juan Carlos Tabió, Juline Temple, Juanma Bajo Ulloa…

Road Movies was present in competition and official selection
of the "A" festivals (Cannes, Venice and Berlin)
on more than 20 occasions.
Certainly some sort of record.

I left the managing of Road Movies more and more in Uli's hands,
gladly, I must say, in order to return to being a film director again.
I had never fancied myself "a producer".
Uli's expertise in the field carried the company to a new level.
He turned Road Movies into an internationally recognized player
of the independent film world.

In the early summer of 1999,
we merged with DAS WERK.
A very conscious decision,
a step into the future of digital filmmaking,
with one of the cutting edge post-production companies in Europe.
Soon afterwards, we went public.
Hey, after all, we had entered the 21st century.
Things were certainly no longer like what they had been 25 years ago.

"Buena Vista Social Club" was our first all-digitally produced movie.
That film, too, played all over the world.

Altogether, I must say, the name "Road Movies" had been a good omen.
It had kept us moving.
And it had travelled well.

The most important thing you need on the road,
at least that is my conviction,
is some great music.
You get lost otherwise.

Road Movies was blessed with some beautiful scores, tunes, title songs.
Some great musicians worked with us, congenially.
Jürgen Knieper, who scored "The American Friend",
"State of Things". "Wings of Desire" or "Lisbon Story".
Ry Cooder who wrote and produced the music for "Paris, Texas",
"The End of Violence" and "Buena Vista Social Club".
U2 contributed original songs to
"Until the End of the World", "Faraway, So Close!",
"Beyond the Clouds", "The End of Violence" and "The Million Dollar Hotel".
Nick Cave wrote songs for "Wings of Desire",
"Until the End of the World" and "Faraway, So Close!"
Lou Reed worked on "Until the End of the World"
and "Faraway, So Close!" (and even appeared as an actor in it…)
Just to name some of our most prominent musician friends
who spent time "on the road" with us.

I hope you enjoy the trip as much as we did,
when you listen to our "anniversary CD".

Wim Wenders

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