Wim Wenders visits Palermo to promote new film (and eat Italian ices)

On Monday January 21st, in front of an assembly of nearly 300 afficionados, Wim Wenders delighted Palermo's Golden Theater audience with jokes and anecdotes about Shooting Palermo, his new film which will be ready in about four months' time. The brilliant German director, playwright and photographer who is already renowned for such films as Don't Come Knocking (Viva Butte, Montana!), Paris, Texas and Buena Vista Social Club, just to mention a few of his masterpieces, has fallen in love with Palermo's gourmet Italian ices and has decided to shoot a film in Sicily's capital city in order to stock up on lemon sorbets.

The Palermo Shooting stars Andreas Frege, "Campino", the lead singer of the German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen ( The Dead Trousers) [a photograph by Andreas Gursky of one of their concerts is on display at The Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.] in the role of a German photographer who comes to Palermo in order to make a break with his past and finds... Sorry you'll have to see the movie for yourself when it comes out, spoilers verboten!!!

The cast, for now, subject to change without notice, includes the following: Campino, Dennis Hopper, Patti Smith, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Jana Pallaske, Lou Reed, Inga Busch, Udo Samel, Sebastian Blomberg, Melika Foroutan, Alessandro Dieli, Francesco Guzzo, Giovanni Sollima, Wolfgang Michael, Harry Blain, Axel Sichrovsky, Irina Gerdt and Gerhard Gutberlet.

(Lorraine Eda Rolla)