Wim Wenders on cinema’s future: ‘Hope is an amazing driving force, it gives soul to whatever you do’

“This is a round table? Where’s the table?”

On that disarming note, renowned German director Wim Wenders began a discussion with a group of Indian filmmakers on Friday in Mumbai. The wide-ranging conversation, one of several events planned during Wenders’s first ever tour of India, shed invaluable insights into Wenders’s creative process.

The guests included filmmakers and cinematographers from across the spectrum of Indian cinema. Payal Kapadia, Sriram Raghavan, Lijo Jose Pellissery, Rima Das, Dev Benegal, Aamir Bashir, Nikkhil Advani, Piyush Shah, Kiran Rao, Nandita Das, KU Mohanan, Shonali Bose, Kartik Vijay, Dibakar Banerjee, Vikramaditya Motwane and Amole Gupte were among those who sat in an oblong formation at the IFBE cultural centre in Mumbai, lobbing questions and encomiums at Wenders.