In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”
Downtown Recife’s classic movie palaces from the 20th century are mostly gone. That city area is now an archaeological site of sorts that reveals aspects of life in society which have been lost. And that’s just part of the story.
Kleber Mendonça Filho (born 1968) is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and critic, born in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. With a degree in Journalism from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Kleber Mendonça Filho began his career as a film critic and journalist. As a director, he experimented with fiction, documentary, and video clips in the 1990s. He migrated from video to digital and 35 mm film in the 2000s. Over the course of that decade, he made several short films. "O Som ao Redor" (Neighbouring Sounds, 2013) was Mendonça's first feature-length drama, winning numerous awards. Mendonça's films have received more than 120 awards in Brazil and abroad, with selections in festivals such as New York, Copenhagen and Cannes (Quinzaine des réalisateurs). Film festivals in Rotterdam, Toulouse, and Santa Maria da Feira have presented retrospectives of his films. He has served as programmer of cinema for the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation.