Nick’s Movie: Lightning over Water

It is 1979, Wim Wenders arrives by taxi at Nicholas Ray’s home in New York; beforehand, two directors had become friends while making Wenders’ film “The American Friend”. Now, Ray, terminally ill with cancer and in increasingly poor health, wants to finish a film about a painter seeking treatment in China. It is impossible to fulfill his wish to make one last film, but the two filmmakers embark on a documentary project. The frames captured by film and digital cameras convey a fading life. Wenders, questioning his own role in the film, says goodbye not only to his friend, but also to an entire era of American cinema to which Nicholas Ray belonged.

The film catches your attention with its unusual, playful structure. Underneath this formal playfulness, underlying tensions between the making of the film, the approach of death, and Nicholas Ray himself are revealed. It is a deeply personal film, filled with grief, but also it is the setting for an unusual encounter with Nicholas Ray – here he appears not as an object of film history crammed with meaning, but as a subject confronted with a harsh reality. The film highlights the ethical dilemmas faced by Wim Wenders between the dignity of his dying friend and his desire to capture this death on film. Some images appear too beautiful, others push the still-living protagonist towards death. – Festival coordinator and program curator Justina Jaruševičiūtė

Wim Wenders, Nicholas Ray

Wim Wenders (born 1945 in Düsseldorf) gained international recognition as a major protagonist of the New German Cinema of the 1970s. Today, he is considered one of the most prominent figures in contemporary world cinema. His films Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987) are today part of the international canon of film heritage, as are his innovative documentaries Pina, Buena Vista Social Club, and The Salt of the Earth. He lives and works with his wife, Donata Wenders, in the countryside near Berlin.

Nicholas Ray (1911-1979), born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, was an architect-turned-filmmaker. Ray’s films are among the most heartfelt and disarmingly authentic works of the Hollywood studio era. Above all, his cinema glows with an ardent humanism, a passionate sympathy for the most vulnerable underdogs, those wounded loners and outcasts who stumble nobly across his films. The director was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story for Rebel Without a Cause, twice for the Golden Lion, for Bigger Than Life (1956) and Bitter Victory (1957), and a Palme d’Or for The Savage Innocents (1960).