German director Wim Wenders has withdrawn the 1975 film Wrong Move from circulation due to a controversial scene featuring Nastassja Kinski at the age of 13. While public access to the film has been halted, there has been no clear statement on whether a new edit of the production will be made.
Highlights
- Wenders' 1975 film Wrong Move has been withdrawn from circulation.
- The reason for the decision was the scene featuring Nastassja Kinski as a child.
- The foundation holding the rights to the film announced it would instruct publishers and distribution partners to stop access.
- Wenders said he would not shoot the scene under today's conditions.
- Kinski's lawyer argued that the director was trying to avoid responsibility.
Controversial scene back in the spotlight
The scene where Kinski is seen in bed wearing only underwear, followed by the actor Rüdiger Vogler, who was in his 30s at the time, entering the room and undressing down to his underwear before lying on the young actress, has long been criticized. The content of the scene led to renewed debate about the film years later.
Kinski said she had been asking Wenders for years to remove this part. In a recent interview with a German newspaper, she expressed that she realized at 13 that it was not right. This statement reignited the debate about the film's past.
The foundation's decision
The Wim Wenders Foundation, under Wenders' control, announced on Wednesday that it had withdrawn the film Wrong Move from circulation. The foundation stated that streaming partners, television broadcasters, and distribution partners would be informed to end public access to the film.
However, it is not yet clear whether Wenders will re-edit the film to remove the scene. The director said he was also questioning whether this would mean interfering with film history.
Wenders' remarks
Wenders brought up the issue during his lifetime achievement award speech at the German Film Awards last Friday. In his speech, he said he would not shoot that scene today and acknowledged that the scene continued to cause pain for Kinski.
The director spoke with great admiration for Kinski and recalled working with her again years later in the films Paris, Texas and Faraway, So Close!. However, he openly questioned whether he had the right to alter the work's history.
Wenders also argued that as a young filmmaker at 29, 50 years ago, he was trying to capture the spirit of the time and expressed that he did not want to fully judge his past by today's standards.
Legal objection grows
Kinski's lawyer Christian Schertz interpreted Wenders' remarks as an attempt to avoid personal responsibility. Schertz said he would file a lawsuit if the scene was not removed.
Some opinion pieces in the German press also argued that removing the scene would be symbolically correct. The debate has brought back into focus the boundary between artistic freedom in cinema and the protection of child actors.
Context: Wrong Move was one of the early films in which Wenders and Kinski worked together. The duo later reunited in the award-winning films Paris, Texas and Faraway, So Close! Today's decision directly affected both the film's circulation and the long-standing ethical debate.
