Curiosidades

Considers Yasujirô Ozu to be his all-time grandmaster.

He has been infertile since an illness in childhood.

Donated his $5,000 Cannes prize for Asas do Desejo (1987) to Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan.

President of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 42nd Cannes International Film Festival in 1989.

His book "Emotion Pictures", a collection of diary essays written while he was a film student, was adapted and broadcast as a series of plays on BBC Radio 3.

He worked with all of his wives on at least one movie: With Edda Köchl: Alice nas Cidades (1974), Summer in the City (1971) and O Medo do Goleiro Diante do Pênalti (1972); with Lisa Kreuzer: Alice nas Cidades (1974), O Amigo Americano (1977), Movimento em Falso (1975) and No Decurso do Tempo (1976); with Isabelle Weingarten: O Estado das Coisas (1982); with Ronee Blakley: Um Filme Para Nick (1980), Hammett - Mistério em Chinatown (1982) and I Played It for You (1985) and with Donata Wenders: Além das Nuvens (1995), Arisha, der Bär und der steinerne Ring (1992), Buena Vista Social Club (1999), O Fim da Violência (1997), O Céu de Lisboa (1994), Medo e Obsessão (2004) and O Hotel de Um Milhão de Dólares (2000).

President of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 65th Venice International Film Festival in 2008. He reportedly argued with the festival's artistic director over the award rules and disliked the experience so much, that he vowed to never be part of a festival jury again.

After studying medicine, philosophy and sociology in Munich, Freiburg and Düsseldorf, he joined the Munich Academy for Television and Film (HFF) in 1968.

Many of his films are indebted to Nicholas Ray, which is proved by the expressionistic use of color in O Amigo Americano (1977) or the title of Até o Fim do Mundo (1991) (Until The End of The World), the last spoken words in Ray's O Rei dos Reis (1961). No Decurso do Tempo (1976) also lovingly lifts a scene from Ray's Paixão de Bravo (1952). His movie Um Filme Para Nick (1980) is a documentary about Nicholas Ray's last days.

President of the European Film Academy.

He has directed one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Buena Vista Social Club (1999).

Born on exactly the same date as comic legend Steve Martin.

Wender's Gray City, Inc. Manhattan office overlooks 11 East 14th Street, the site of D. W. Griffith's American Biograph studio, whose brownstone has been replaced by a white condominium.

Is also a photographer.

He closed Belgrade Film Festival - FEST 2006.

Graduated from the Hochschule Fur Film & Fernsehen.

As of 2022, his three Oscar nominations came from documentary features rather than his fictional films (none of them were Oscar nominated).

Attended Munich's Academy of Film and Television (HFF München) from 1967 to 1970.

Nephew of Margarete Hafner.

His life companion between 1983 and 1992 was French actress Solveig Dommartin, who edited with him the documentary "Tokyo-Ga", starred in "Wings of Desire" and "Until the End of the World" (she also co-wrote the latter) and appeared in "Faraway, So Close!".

Uncle of Hella Wenders.