Wim Wenders Clarifies His Stance on Filmmakers’ Role in Politics After Berlin Controversy: ‘We Are the Opposite of Politicians … We Are the Antidote’

Wim Wenders has clarified his much-discussed statement about filmmakers’ role in politics that kicked off a firestorm at Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.

Wenders was at the center of a heated debate at the Berlinale in February after the celebrated German filmmaker, who served as jury president, said during the opening press conference that filmmakers “should stay out of politics.”

“We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics,” Wenders said at the time. “But we are the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.”

The statement then dominated the discourse at the festival, with nearly every filmmaker and actor facing a question about politics — including the ongoing conflict in Gaza and ICE raids in the U.S. — during their respective press conferences. Author Arundhati Roy even pulled out of the festival in protest, and festival director Tricia Tuttle had to put out a statement in response to the frenzy.

Asked to reflect on his statement Sunday during a press conference at Venice Film Festival, where he is presenting his latest documentary “From Inside Out — The Architecture of Peter Zumthor,” Wenders said that he “could repeat the same thing,” though admitted he “could be more explicit.”

“What I said then was, as filmmakers, we are the opposite of politicians. We have empathy. Politics work without empathy; that’s all I said,” Wenders, who sported an “Imagine Peace” shirt, began. “We have a very different thing. I’m not working with a mindset of politicians, we are working with a mindset of empathetic people. And we are into changing things, politics are into confirming what is.”

He continued, “That’s what I said and was quoted as ‘We have to stay out of politics,’ and that is not what I said, because it’s not what I said now and I said the same thing then. The frame of filmmakers is a different mindset than the mindset of politicians, and we should not work with that mindset. We work with a different set of rules. I said it again, and I hope you’re not misquoting me and say we have to stay out of politics, because we do the opposite. We are the antidote.”

At Venice’s opening press conference earlier in the festival, jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal weighed in on the topic, saying that movies are “fundamentally, undeniably political.”

“Look, we could say, how are we possibly here talking about movies right now when the world is in a state of emergency?” she said. “To me, the answer has something to do with empathy. I think that film allows an opening into an opportunity to find empathy inside of ourselves.”