The Barbican’s City Visions film season opens with Wim Wenders’ Cathedrals of Culture, a collection of short films by a star-studded line-up of directors. Which gave us a good excuse to ask Wenders about his home city, Berlin ...

A still from Wenders’ film Wings of Desire, in which two angels wander the divided German capital.
A still from Wenders’ film Wings of Desire, in which two angels wander the divided German capital.

Do you feel the Berlin of now is the same Berlin you portrayed in Wings of Desire, or is it now a different city altogether?

WW: Oh, man, has it ever changed! There is a building in my neighbourhood, on Brunnenstrasse, on which it is written, in huge letters: “This house once stood in another country!” That pretty much nails it. Berlin was two cities in two countries, a quarter of a century ago, and it still represents a phenomenal change. I don’t think that any other city in the world (well, I should probably not include Chinese cities) has undergone such dramatic reinvention.

Mitte, along with Prenzlauerberg, Kreuzberg etc, has seen dramatic leaps towards gentrification over 10-20 years - do you mind it? Is it all bad, or are there positives too?

Considering the gentrification I have seen and witnessed myself in New York, Paris or London, what is happening in Berlin is not that dramatic. But obviously, with Berlin’s raising popularity, and the continuing arrival of (mostly young) people from all over the world to the city, proportions have shifted, certain quarters have become more expensive, and others are inundated with tourists, like Mitte. The other day I saw the first horse-drawn coach trot along Linienstrasse, and I find myself avoiding horse-shit with my bicycle in our quarter, so I figure we are clearly becoming a new Central Park.

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Architecture is usually present in films merely as backdrop: what is Cathedrals of Culture trying to do differently?

We’re giving architecture centre stage. Our films each deal with a particular building, and we even let those buildings “speak for themselves”, by giving them their own voice.