06
Feb
2018

Wim Wenders at the 22nd Sofia Film Festival with his newest film – SUBMERGENCE

The independent cinema emblem will hold a special MASTERCLASS and will present his own retrospective for the Bulgarian public in March.
Wenders is visiting SFF with the support of the United Bulgarian Bank and in partnership with Goethe-Institut!

Wim Wenders is returning to Sofia and to the Bulgarian audience almost 10 years after presenting his "Palermo Shooting" feature film. The President of the European Film Academy and a famous cinematographer chose the capital of United Europe for the first half of 2018 – Sofia, to present his ambitious project Submergence that opened the 65th San Sebastian Film Festival. SUBMERGENCE is a love story that takes the viewer into the totally different worlds of the two main characters Danielle Flinders and James Moore, played by Alicia Vikander and James McAvoy. “More thematically restrained than some of Wenders' grander films, this one is only about love, the origins of life, the increasing scarcity of natural resources and the conflict between the West and radical Islamist terrorism…” wrote Hollywood Reporter.

In a room with no windows on the eastern coast of Africa, a Scotsman, James More, is held captive by jihadist fighters. Posing as a well-digging expert, he monitors al-Qaeda's activity in the vicinity. After he is captured, an execution is staged and James is taken to Somalia. Thousands of miles away in the Greenland Sea, Danielle Flinders prepares to dive in a submersible to the ocean floor. In their confines, they are drawn back to the Christmas of the previous year, where a chance encounter on a beach in France led to an intense and enduring romance.

Submergence is an internationally co-produced romantic thriller film based on the novel of same name by J. M. Ledgard. Screenplay/Writer is Erin Dignam, (who is also the writer of Sean Penn's "The Last Face"). The film cast includes also Sharlotte Rampling, Alexander Siddig, and Audrey Cuturi.

United Bulgarian Bank and our partner Goethe-Institut have a special gift for all the film fans – six more titles from Wim Wenders’ filmography, which you will be able to watch during March.

The first one is the digitally restored version of the Golden Palm award winner at Cannes, "Paris Texas" (1984). Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski shine in the lead roles, and Ry Cooder is the composer of the remarkable motion picture soundtrack. SFF will be the first festival in the world, after Berlin, which will show the digitally restored version of "Wings of Desire", with the original title "Der Himmel über Berlin". The film offers the viewer a flight over Berlin between magic and reality, and brings Wenders the Best Director award at the Cannes in 1987, as well as many other world awards. This is the premise for his first photo book - "Written in the West".

A triple 3D Wenders accent includes the poetic essay dedicated to Pina Bausch "Pina" (with documentary Oscar nomination), the amazing documentary devoted to architecture "Cathedrals of Culture", and the full-length dramatic feature "Every Thing Will be Fine".

"I'm sure that when such technologies are included to intensify the characters in an intimate drama, the films will have another dimension, they touch the audience in a different way by bringing them closer to the characters." Said Wenders about his three-dimensional feature film "Every Thing Will be Fine", written by Bjørn Olaf Johannessen, starring James Franco and Charlotte Gainsbourg ("Nymphomaniac", "Melancholia", "Antichrist" by Lars von Trier).

The unique work "Salt on the Earth" – a biographical documentary film portraying the works of one of the most talented photographers of all time, the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, it is also part of Wenders’ signature films that we will see at the SPF in March.

We are Waiting for You at the CINEMAS!