THE STATE OF THINGS / DER STAND DER DINGE / СТАН РЕЧЕЙ

Leonid Nefedovich
Sep 24
3 min read

1981 / 122' / feature / West Germany

The State Of Things is a highly personal film about filmmaking in Europe and America. It is about a film crew stranded at the most western tip of Europe. Director Friedrich Munroe (Patrick Bauchau), cameraman (Sam Fuller), scriptwriter and actors have been abandoned by their producer. After shooting their last feet of film (they are working on the remake of a low-budget sci-fi thriller), there is nothing left to do but wait.

Friedrich finally sets out for Los Angeles to search for the missing producer (Allen Goorwitz). He finally finds him on Sunset Boulevard, in his RV, where he is hiding out from the mafiosi or loan sharks who are after him. The two have to pay with their lives for their black-and-white film adventure the following morning. Friedrich continues to “put up a fight” by “shooting back” with his Super 8 camera until the moment of his death.

Screenings schedule:

September 30, 2025 at 10:30 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: Chris Sievernich, Wim Wenders

Screenwriter: Wim Wenders, Robert Kramer

DOP: Henri Alekan, Fred Murphy

Composer: Jürgen Knieper

Cast: Patrick Bauchau, Viva Auder, Samuel Fuller, Paul Getty III, Artur Semedo, Francisco Baiao, Robert Kramer, Isabelle Weingarten, Rebecca Pauly, Jeffrey Kime, Camilla Mora, Geoffrey Carey, Alexandra Auder, Allen Goorwitz

Production: Road Movies GmbH (Berlin), Wim Wenders Produktion (Berlin), Pro-ject Filmproduktion im Verlag der Autoren GmbH & Co. KG (Munich), Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) (Mainz)

Rightsholder: Salaud Morisset

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