Director’s Statement
Films to Die For is a product of the ‘film on films’ genre, which has experienced an exponential growth in recent years, evolving from the restricted academic environment to a popular cultural artefact. Authors of films on films, like myself, are part of the growing community of digital remixers, who in recent times have ceased to abide by the old ‘politique des auteurs’ and embraced the ‘politique de l’amateur’, as the blurring of boundaries, in the digital age, between filmmakers, critics, theorists and film buffs has been defined. Rather than authors, we are ‘amorous cinephiles’, in love with cinema and determined to preserve it from its many announced deaths.
Thus, Films to Die For revolves around the theme of love and death for cinema. The nodal film I have chosen for this approach is Wim Wenders’s The State of Things, a typical metafilm which, through its fictional plot, allows us to experience the reality of the medium by documenting the inner workings of the industry. By retracing on film the history of The State of Things, including a plethora of its cinephilic ramifications, I hope to demonstrate the converging desire of filmmakers from the most disparate corners of the globe to combine their love for cinema into an ‘artistic commons’, or a realm without borders.