In 1982, Wim Wenders interviewed sixteen filmmakers about the future of cinema to make Room 666. Forty years later, Lubna Playoust is asking a new generation of directors similar questions.
A hotel room with a working TV set in Cannes: Wim Wenders, Audrey Diwan, David Cronenberg, Asghar Farhadi, Claire Denis, Ayo Akingbade, Cristian Mungiu, Albert Serra, Ninja Thyberg, Alice Rohrwacher, and twenty other filmmakers appear in the room in turn. The camera crew hands each person a sheet with questions, turns on the tripod-mounted camera, and leaves. Alone with the camera, the protagonists reflect on whether the language of cinema has been lost and if cinema as an art form is dying.
The making of Room 666 was inspired by the television boom. It seemed that TV would take the place of cinema and movie theaters. Room 999 is set in the post-pandemic era, where the popularity of streaming services and new formats has got filmmakers worried about the fate of the big screen once again. Most interviews are pessimistic, although some filmmakers argue that not all stories have been told and that to be able to express something on screen is the most important thing, whatever size the screen.
Words make up one of the film’s storylines. Bodies, succeeding each other in the minimalist setting of a hotel room, form a different one. The bodies of filmmakers, usually hidden on the other side of the lens, become visible and vulnerable in front of the camera, which loses and re-finds focus on an automatic setting. Male and female bodies of different colors, born in different places together form the collective body of «the Cannes director» (the film was shot several days before the opening of the 2022 festival and screened there a year later). And while that body is still predominantly European and male, it has become much more diverse since 1982.
The film will be screened in English, French, Persian, Italian, Portuguese, and Swedish with Russian subtitles.
Room 999
Director: Lubna Playoust
France, Germany, 2023. 86 min. 12+