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PRODUCTION Italy

Wenders presents 3D doc Il Volo

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As a response to the dramatic images of the revolt of the African field hands in Rosarno, Calabria that were seen the world over last January, those of Wim Wenders’ film Il Volo (“Flight”) document an admirable example of "a welcome" that began over 10 years in Calabria, when a group of Kurds settled down in Riace, on the Calabrian coast.

The German director’s initial project, a seven-minute short from an original story by Eugenio Melloni, turned into a 32-minute hybrid of documentary and fiction after Wenders met a young Afghani refugee. Il Volo became a firsthand account, with Wenders’ off-camera narration, of immigration as resource. "What was happening to these people was much more important than the fiction I was making,” said Wenders, in Rome to present the film.

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Commissioned by the Calabria Region and co-produced with the local Film Commission and with support from the High Commissioner of the United Nations, the film was shot in 3D, with stereoscopy directed by Giampiero Piazza and Francesca Tornimbeni and cinematography by Romano Albani.

"Today, 3D is used as a tool to boost the imagination, it takes us to faraway lands and lets us travel,” says Wenders, who was among the first European directors to experiment with digital video cameras. "But I’m sure that in a few years it will be widely used by documentary filmmakers because it can create a new door to reality. It aids and strengthens our access to reality."

Wenders confirmed that he’s shooting a film about renowned German choreographer Pina Bausch (who passed away last year), which should be out by the end of the year. “I began the film before she got sick and then abandoned it for a while,” he admitted. “It is being finished with the pain for a friend no longer with us.”

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(Translated from Italian)

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