Read Wim Wenders’ Full Speech As Director Finally Addresses Berlinale Backlash: “The Weather Was A Bit Stormy”

Wim Wenders addressed his tumultuous term as president of the jury at the 76th Berlinale at its closing ceremony on Saturday, suggesting filmmakers and activists need to work together rather than be at odds.

The Paris, Texas; Wings of Desire and Buena Vista Social Club director and Berlin resident had reportedly been relishing the opportunity to head up the jury at the Berlinale, a festival he has long association with.

But Wenders’ term as jury president went awry at the opening press conference when he declared filmmakers had to “stay out of politics” in answer to a question on the festival’s failure to publicly declare support for Palestinians in the wake of Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza, sparked in turn by the October 7 2023 terror attacks.

Wenders’ comment sparked a backlash in which Arundhati Roy cancelled her attendance and 2025 Berlinale Golden Bear honoree Tilda Swinton joined 80 prominent cinema figures in an open letter condemning the silence over Gaza.

As Wenders came on stage for Saturday night’s ceremony, host Désirée Nosbusch asked him: “Ten days ago, during our opening ceremony, you said, ‘I’m looking forward to this Berlinale. It’s a little bit of a holiday, watching movies. I think this was not quite the holiday you imagined, right?”

Wenders replied: “It didn’t work out… things turned out differently…  especially in the beginning, the weather was a bit stormy.”

Nosbusch responded: “And sometimes it becomes a bit slippery when the weather is bad…”

Wenders concurred but added his jury – comprising Nepalese director Min Bahadur Bham, Korean actor Bae Doona, Indian producer and archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, U.S. director Reinaldo Marcus Green, Japanese director HIKARI and Polish producer Ewa Puszczyńska – “could deal with anything”.

Prior to announcing the jury’s winners, Wenders said emphatically, “First we have to talk” and then launched into a speech suggesting activists and filmmakers should not be at odds, but rather complementary as eyes on the injustices of the world.

Read Wenders’ full speech below:

“What is the common language at the Berlinale. How do we express ourselves, apart from words, about how we feel about the world, this beautiful, insanely complicated, terrifying and out of control world we live in now. It’s the language of cinema that this jury from seven countries had in common.

It was the predominant language of the Berlinale for seven decades. It was always accompanied by the language of critics and journalists. The language of politics has also always been present as Berlin always was and still is an enormously politicized place. And since we live in the 21st Century, there is the language of the internet, a quick and fast worldwide digital language.

Lately we observe a dispute over which language should have the sovereignty of interpretation at this festival.

Our language, cinema, is highly differentiated and there are as many approaches to this language as there are filmmakers. The ones you saw already before are part of them. What the works of most filmmakers have in common is compassion. In all 22 films we saw this was their predominant attitude. It will reflect strongly in all the films that will receive an award tonight.

The language of cinema is empathetic. The language of social media is effective. We need to talk about that artificial discrepancy that happens here in Berlin. Activists are fighting, mainly on the internet, for humanitarian causes, namely the dignity and protection of human life. These are our causes as well, as the Berlinale films clearly show.

Most of us filmmakers applaud you. All of us applaud you. You do necessary and courageous work. But does it need to be in competition with us? Do our languages need to clash. Our tools, our stories, faces, places, words, emotions, our approaches can be critical, satirical, comical, but will always be complex and complicated.

Our most effective instrument is called in German, I love this word, ‘anschauung’. It’s difficult to translate it into English, a sort of a visual, sensual and existential immersion. But even if our languages are so different, we need each other, activists, friends of the suppressed, agitators against the suppressors.

If we treat each other as allies, as different but complementary languages, our shared causes have a better chance to resist the ever-changing wind of consumption, of abstraction and over saturation. Let us not discard or under-estimate each other’s reach and possibility.

Cinema is more resistant to oblivion, and certainly longer living than the short-lived attention span that the internet offers, while our urgency, no, while your urgency reaches places our films cannot. This should not be a competition, but a partnership. Tilda Swinton has said something beautiful in a magnificent speech on receiving the Golden Bear her last year. Being for something does not, ever, ever imply being anti anyone else. This is some, something so simple that is always easily overlooked… but now let’s go and have some ‘anschauung’.”