A TRICK OF THE LIGHT / DIE GEBRÜDER SKLADANOWSKY / БРАТИ СКЛАДАНОВСЬКІ

Leonid Nefedovich
Sep 25
3 min read

1996 / 80' / feature / Germany

Wim Wenders made this film together with graduates of the University of Television and Film, Munich. It shows the beginnings of cinema in Berlin where the brothers Skladanowsky built a projector, the bioscope, at the same time as the Lumière brothers in France and Edison in America. Together they invented “moving images” in their very own, poetic, lovable and rather un-German way. The film begins a hundred years ago and ends in the year 1996, with Max Skladanowsky’s daughter Lucie, who still remembers her father and the early days of cinema very well. The film was mainly shot on an old hand-crank camera from the 1920s. A silent movie in original slapstick style.

Screenings schedule:

September 26, 2025 at 10:45 a.m. at the Zhovten Cinema, Anshlah Hall

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DIRECTOR - WIM WENDERS

Biography

Wim Wenders (born 1945) came to international prominence as one of the pioneers of the World Cinema during the 1970s and is considered to be one of the most important figures in contemporary German film. In addition to his many prize-winning feature films, his work as a scriptwriter, director, producer, photographer, and screenwriter also encompasses an abundance of innovative documentary films, internationally presented photo exhibitions also well as numerous monographs, film books and prose collections. He lives and works in Berlin, together with his wife, Donata Wenders.

Wim Wenders studied medicine and philosophy before moving to Paris in 1966 to study painting. Though ostensibly pursuing an apprenticeship in the studio of the graphic designer and engraver Johnny Friedlaender, he spent his afternoons and evenings in the Cinémathèque Francaise. This “crash course in the history of film” would become the most important stage in his education, as Wenders soon began to think of film as an “extension of painting by other means”.

His career as a filmmaker began in 1967 when Wenders enrolled at the newly founded University of Television and Film Munich (HFF Munich). Parallel to his studies at the HFF, he also worked as a film critic from 1967 to 1970. At this point in time, he had already directed various short films. Upon graduating from the academy in 1971, he founded, together with fifteen other directors and authors, the Filmverlag der Autoren, a film distribution company for German auteur films, which organized the production, rights administration and distribution of their own independent films.

After completing his debut feature out of film school The Goalie’s Anxiety At The Penalty Kick (1971) Wenders turned to shooting his road movie trilogy, Alice in the Cities (1973), The Wrong Move (1974) and Kings of the Road (1975), in which the protagonists try to come to terms with their rootlessness in post-war Germany among other things. His international breakthrough came with The American Friend (1977). Since then Wenders has continued to work both in Europe and the USA as well as in Latin America and Asia and has been honored with countless awards at festivals around the world, including: the Golden Palm at the Cannes Festival and the BAFTA Film Award for Paris, Texas (1984); the Director’s Prize in Cannes for Wings of Desire (1987); the Golden Lion at the international Film Festival in Venice for The State Of Things (1982); and the Silver Bear for The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) at the Berlin International Film Festival. His documentary films Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Pina (2011), and The Salt of the Earth (2014) have all been nominated for an Oscar.

Selected filmography

1970: Summer in the City
1974: Alice in the Cities
1975: The Wrong Move
1976: Kings of the Road
1977: The American Friend
1982: The State Of Things
1984: Paris, Texas
1987: Wings of Desire
1991: Until the End of the World
1993: Faraway, So Close!
1995: Beyond the Clouds
2000: The Million Dollar Hotel
2011: Pina
2014: The Salt of the Earth
2023: Perfect Days

Producer: Wim Wenders, Wolfgang Längsfeld, Veit Helmer

Screenwriter: Carlos Alvarez, Sebastian Andrae, Sorin Dragoi, Peter Fuchs, Carsten Funke, Florian Gallenberger, Markus Hansen, Henrik Heckmann, Veit Helmer, Germán Kral, Björn Kurt, Bodo Lang, Matthias Lehmann, Eva Munz, Stephan Puchner, Barbara Rohm, Britta Sauer, Marcus Schmidt, Alina Teodorescu

DOP: Jürgen Jürges, Andreas Giesecke

Composer: Laurent Petitgand

Cast: Udo Kier, Nadine Büttner, Christoph Merg, Otto Kuhnle, Bodo Lang, Rüdiger Vogler, Alfred Szczot, Hans Moser, Thomas Rosié, Lucie Hürtgen-Skladanowsky

Production: Wim Wenders Produktion (Berlin), University of Television and Film Munich, Veit Helmer Filmproduktion (Berlin)

Rightsholder: Salaud Morisset

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