Special Event at the 2011 Rome Film Festival, “Pina” by Wim Wenders’ is a huge miracle of the connection between cinema, dance, art and technologies.
The first European 3D ever made, “Pina” is a feature-length dance film with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch (died in 2009), featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer.

He takes the audience on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension: straight onto the stage with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ensemble, he follows the dancers out of the theatre into the city and the surrounding areas of Wuppertal – the place, which for 35 years was the home and centre for Pina Bausch’s creativity.

Wim Wenders was deeply impressed and moved when in 1985 he saw for the first time “Café Müller” by choreographer Pina Bausch when the Tanztheater Wuppertal performed in Venice, at the occasion of a retrospective of Busch’s work. Out of the meeting of the two artists grew a long-standing friendship and with the passage of time the plan for a joint film
The defining moment for the movie finally came for Wim Wenders when the Irish Rock band U2 presented their digitally produced 3D concert film “U2-3D” in Cannes.

Wenders knew immediately: “With 3D our project would be possible! Only in this way, by incorporating the dimension of space, I could dare (and not just presumingly), to bring Pina’s Tanztheater in in an adequate form to the screen. ”
The Director  began to systematically view the new generation of digital 3D cinema and in 2008 together with Pina Bausch to consider the realization of their shared dream.

In early 2009, Wim Wenders and his production company Neue Road Movies, together with Pina Bausch and the Ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal, began the phase of actual pre-production. After half a year of intensive work, and only two days before the planned 3D rehearsal shoot, the unimaginable happened: Pina Bausch died on June 30th 2009, suddenly and unexpectedly.

Around the world admirers of her art and friends of the Tanztheater Wuppertal mourned the death of the great choreographer. This seemed to be the end of the joint film project. Wim Wenders immediately stopped preparations, convinced that the movie, without Pina Bausch, should no longer be pursued.

After a period of mourning and reflection, Wim Wenders decided to make the film without Pina Bausch at his side, after all. Her inquiring, affectionate look at the gestures and movements of her ensemble and every detail of her choreography was still alive and present and inscribed into the bodies of her dancers. Now, in spite of the great loss, was the right moment, and maybe the last one to record all this on film.

The new film concept includes, in addition to excerpts from the four productions of “Café Müller”, “Le Sacre du printemps”, “Vollmond” and “Kontakthof”, carefully selected archive footage of Pina Bausch at work, innovatively inserted in the 3D world of the film as a third element, with many imaginative, short solo performances by the dancers of the ensemble.
Wim Wenders used Pina Bausch’s own method of “questioning” with which the choreographer developed her new productions. She posed questions and her dancers answered not in words, but with improvised dance and body language.

For the 3D image composition Wim Wenders convinced one of the most experienced 3D pioneers in stereography, Alain Derobe, to join his team. For the unique requirements of the shoot of PINA, Derobe developed a special 3D camera rig mounted on a crane.
To create the depth of the room it is very important to stay close to the dancers and to follow them: “Normally, with a dance film, we would erect cameras in front of the stage, far away from the action on stage,” says Alain Derobe, “for PINA we positioned the cameras between the dancers. The camera literally dances with them. Therefore, each crew member had to deal with the choreography. Everyone had to know exactly where the dancers would move so the camera could follow them and not be in their way.”

Masterpiece, with elegance, art and passion.
Must be seen, over and over.

100 min, Digital 3D
Directed by: Wim Wenders
Choreography: Pina Bausch
Producer: Gian-Piero Ringel
Stereography: Alain Derobe
3D Supervisor: François Garnier
Artistic Consultants: Peter Pabst, Dominique Mercy, Robert Sturm
Co-producer: Claudie Ossard, Chris Bolzli
3D Producer: Erwin M. Schmidt
Executive Producer: Jeremy Thomas
Editing: Wolfgang Bergmann, Dieter Schneider, Gabriele Heuser
Produced by: Neue Road Movies (Berlin)
Co-produced by: Eurowide (Paris)

In collaboration with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, ZDF,
ZDF theaterkanal und ARTE

by Ilaria Rebecchi

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