German filmmaker Wim Wenders on Wednesday said he has pulled his 1975 movie “The Wrong Move” over a nude scene featuring a then-13-year-old Nastassja Kinski.
Kinski, now 65, has urged Wenders to reedit the film. Last month, she told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung: “That was my first film, he was my first director and he didn’t protect me.”
Wenders, the acclaimed director behind “Paris, Texas” and “Wings of Desire,” issued a statement apologizing to Kinski.
“I recognize that Nastassja Kinski should have been better protected back then,” Wenders said. “For that, I apologize to you, Nastassja, unreservedly, no ifs and buts.”
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“The Wrong Move” marked the film debut of Kinski, the daughter of actor Klaus Kinski. It stars Rüdiger Vogler as an aspiring writer wandering through Germany. His encounters include an apparently mute teen acrobat played by Kinski, who appears topless in a scene.
Wenders said he was “withdrawing it from all current forms of distribution and exhibition,” including streaming services and broadcast television. His nonprofit Wim Wenders Foundation owns “The Wrong Move.”
The film will remain unavailable, Wenders said, until a mutually agreed upon solution can be found. He said he will seek “a broad dialogue” that includes Kinksi, the German Film Academy and other film groups.
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“It is necessary for our society to find appropriate ways of dealing with controversial film works from the 20th Century and to face new learning processes and inclusive perspectives regarding cinema,” said Wenders.
Representatives for Kinski did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment Wednesday.
At the German Film Awards last week, Wenders spoke about his quandary over the film. Speaking to the audience at Germany’s equivalent of the Oscars, Wenders said retroactively editing it “sets a precedent that affects you all, and then it becomes possible with all your films later on.”
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Kinski would go on to co-star in Wenders’ 1984 film “Paris, Texas,” but long maintained misgivings about her introduction to the film business. At the ages of 14 and 17, she also appeared nude in the films “To the Devil a Daughter” and “Stay As You Are.”
“If I had had somebody to protect me or if I had felt more secure about myself, I would not have accepted certain things. Nudity things,” Kinski told W Magazine in 1997. “And inside it was just tearing me apart.”
